Don`t expect 'Come + See 2'
It`s not like most Russian war films I`ve seen recently:"arty" films that certainly have their place and I appreciate(Ivan`s Childhood,They Fought For The MotherLand) but this is an action film in the vein of Hollywood-ironic because on the dvd box it says it isn`t.The Director on the dvd interview seems quite a deep,profound individual but I`m not sure ,listening to him, that this is actually the film he wanted to make.He talks about Black & White photography and using washed out colours but then "realised" he wanted to do something different.Think the Producer may have had a quiet word!
Whatever his intentions this is quite a straightforward, occasionally tough war film that has bucketfulls of tension as the squad creep around behind the German lines and some quite decent battle scenes .The attack on the station is well-handled,with lots of nice bangs and explosions, although the computer generated planes don`t fully convince.Hardware looks pretty genuine and the Producer does say in the interview that Mosfilm(studio that made the film) have amassed vast quantities of authentic WW2 gear over the years for the very purpose of using them in war films(hope they make some more).They clearly don`t have any Tiger 1`s spare although the mock-ups they use are good enough.You can nit-pick about this and that but the biggest gripe for me is a forced love story at the start of the film with an admittedly gorgeous girl.She was clearly "up for it" but our gallant hero(well played by a relative newcomer)and most of the audience didn`t want a tedious romance getting in the way of the action.They probably also couldn`t stomach the ghastly overuse of the soundtrack every time she appeared on screen.Most of the cast were confined to Russian tv before this although they`re all pretty good-especially the young guy playing "sparrow".You might recognise Aleksei Kravchenko from "Come And See" but there the similarity ends.Sure this has emotion and toughness, but it`s NOTHING like that thoroughly depressing and engrossing film experience.
The uk r2 dvd has some deleted scenes,interviews,decent picture(box states 4/3 but image actually looks like 1.55:1 or close to the 1.66:1 stated on IMD tech specs.)Has anyone seen this with a different aspect ratio?Good 5.1 surround too!