MovieChat Forums > Idi i smotri (1985) Discussion > What is the point of this movie?

What is the point of this movie?

posted 8 years ago by bensmith76
7 replies | jump to latest

I don't mean that in a bad way, just wondering on what others feel the point of this movie is.

Having watched it for the first time recently I am still coming to grips with it. It is without doubt the most disturbing movie I have seen and it probably took me a good 2 weeks to get the village sequence out of my head.

But what was the point? This movie is obviously brilliant in its own way, but I don't need a movie to tell me that the Nazi's where bad. Movies like Schindler's List give us stories of hope amoungst the terror, where in this film there is no hope, no release. It just seems like an exercise in putting the audience in the position of being a victim of Nazi war crimes so we can feel their terror, which admittedly it does brilliantly but if the point of the movie is just to make the audience feel bad, is that a justifiable reason to make a movie.

This isn't a movie that you enjoy or could possibly recommend to anyone, but it does make you feel and it stays in your head. But I'm not sure that's a good thing.

I'm interested to read others thoughts on this.

[–] OldSamVimes 8 years ago

Movies like Schindler's List give us stories of hope amoungst the terror, where in this film there is no hope, no release.

Maybe that's the point.

It makes it a more realistic account of war, from a civilian perspective, than most war movies.

How war can forever change a countryside, and the human beings caught up in it.

[–] Lava-Rocks 8 years ago

This movie is a statement about what the Germans did to the Russians.
You could call it propaganda, but it is in no way exaggerated.
You are not supposed to enjoy it, but to endure it.
I had it on my hard drive and erased it.

[–] raf-33 8 years ago

As OldSam says there isn't always hope or happy endings, there is a lot of suffering in the world now and then. If every movie showed that nothing is impossible and that there is always hope and that the victims just might get home to their families then we the viewers will find them less horrifying and become desensitised to being at war.

American movies tend to field most of the happy endings because the last time a war was on their doorstep was the US civil war 150 years ago, but there are still Russians alive today who remember when Nazis with flame throwers burned their villages to make way for German settlers. Killing or raping whomever they chose as inferior beings.

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. -Isaac Asimov

[–] gloops 8 years ago

Polankis's 'The Pianist' is a better film about the Holocaust than Schindler's List, because it doesn't have the Spielberg schmaltz. Polanski was actually in the the Kraków Ghetto as a child and saw events first hand. So when an SS officer's gun jams as he's executing a Jew (someone the audience has got to know and like), he just calmly un-jams it and finishes the job, whereas Spielberg shows an a similar gun jam as a tension builder and escape relief. Total war is dehumanising horror, and the only way to avoid that horror is don't start a war, which is the point of this film.

[–] franciscomap 8 years ago

But they didn't, the Germans did. And if there were no war, almost every Soviet would be a slave to this day. Not only soviets but you get my gist.

[–] azgeobob 8 years ago

Man's inhumanity to man; unabridged, unapologetic, and as historically accurate as possible. By the way, under the "goofs" heading, IMDb states that the vehicles are reworked Soviet designs; they are not. They are Mercedes L3000s, L4500s, and L1500s. The bus is an Opel Blitz 3.6. The motorcycles are BW43s, the cab-over truck is a Lastkraftwagen 3.5. One of the soldiers engaged in throwing the baby back into the church is carrying an early model StG44. The uniforms are real. The unbiquitous filth covering the peasants was a fact of life. These were folks who had no radios, no political aspirations, and no idea of the outside world beyond the next village. Owning a cow made you rich. One day they were engaged in subsistence living, the next day they were obliterated. The point?

[–] serialkillingyou 8 years ago

An important reason for seeing this movie as well as for it existing at all is a testament to the attempted genocide of the Belarusians by the Germans. We all know about the holocaust, which had casualties of roughly 6,000,000 civilians. The Soviet Union had civilian casualties of 14,000,000. This is a largely untold side of World War 2 history. Another facet which I appreciate more and more is the dream like quality of the picture. A large part of the story is abput civilians. There is no glory to be had for a 13 year old boy confronting horror. What lesson can be gleaned about burning children and the elderly? While there are other films such as Schindlers List and Life is Beautiful that do have a message of hope, there are far more documentary films which portray the actual atmosphere of hell on earth. I heard a person who was in the holocaust talk about Schindlers List before. He said he didn't like the films message of hope and goodnss because the holocaust was not about those things. He said it was about failure and death and destruction. I believe the same can be said about the war on the eastern front. Whether or not we are entertained, we are witnesses to these horrors. And the tremendous direction and soundtrack bring us up close and personal, putting us into the horror. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. This movie you cannot ignore.