The fact that they were married in the church. I thought the USSR did its best to stomp out religion in their country. Did churches still function or is this a hollywood error? Also i thought Eastern Orthodox churches didn't have piews i thought it was all standing room only.
shareThe religion has not been destroyed in the USSR - it wasn't welcomed and was ousted from public area to a private, almost confidential life. If official openly attended church, he had to prepare for troubles. (Imagine an american officer of 1950's who openly declared that he joined a communist party. Approximately the same). But churches functioned, of course. Wedding of the Soviet sailor in the church was absolutely impossible. By the way, we carry a wedding ring on the right hand; a ring on the left one is a sign that the person is divorced.
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shareThe wedding of the Russian officer in the church in the movie was meant to show these men lived by their own code, and were loyal to their traditional roots. That is why there were only 5 people in the scene (the bride, the groom, the Captain, the two priests). As for the ring - Sasha was half Romanian so he wore the ring on his left hand in honor of his mother.
share"Code" is far-fetched argument. The real reason was not "roots" or "code", but in the fact that the movie was made for the American audience. Wedding is only one of many absurdities of this movie. These goofs aren't important for the American, and the Russian notices them at once. But, I repeat, the movie was shot not for us.
shareThe Captain (Ed Harris) obviously lives by a strong code - he gives his life in the end for what he believes is right.
The movie was made for all audiences across the globe. The Russian sailors on the side of the Captain are portrayed as heroes in the film, after all. This would seem to be a plus for Russian viewers.
The wedding in the film was portrayed as a private (small) affair intentionally, as a public ceremony would have drawn unwanted attention to these officers.
Yes, there are errors in the film, as with any film. Any film is an assembly of thousands of moving parts and pieces, and while we may have gotten a few things wrong, please take note of the thousands of things we did get right.
They discouraged religion and oppressed the Churches. Also, being religious would compromise you if you had party memberships and ambitions. but it was tolerated to a certain degree.
shareThe church scene is very unrealistic in the movie and is the first scene of many to give away the makers' ignorance or laziness towards making an authentic film. No Soviet officer in the 60s would be a religious man as religion was basically outlawed. All high-level Soviet officers were required to be in the Communist party, and Communists and God were not close. In fact, an officer who attended church would not exist for very long. Communism sought to replace religion with their own dogma, and the few churches that were allowed to remain open were mostly for the foreigners, for "pokazuha" (pretending to be something they are not to promote false beliefs of a good society by the foreigners who visit the USSR). Citizens were certainly not prohibited from going into a church but it could mean ruin or imprisonment, or at the very least a bad reputation. The military were not religious in the USSR. You will find this type of behavior in most dictatorships. I was born in the USSR and my parents were married in city hall. I left when I was 10, in 1979. In school (I finished 3 grades), we never even heard the word God or religion mentioned.
So the church scene is phony. I don't think there'd even be a church around a military/naval base.
The film has many errors that Russian/Ukranian-speaking people will notice immediately: Soldiers (and in fact all Soviet people) refer to one another as Comrade, not sir or mister. Also, a high ranking officer would never show weakness by telling the sailors of his accident and how he 'failed.' The submarine in the movie is a museum, possibly the one in San Diego. I went into it-very cramped, with only 3 toilets for 60+ men! I'm not sure, but I don't think the actual submarines had those windows painted on the sail. I believe that was done for the museum boat, but I'm not positive. Submarines do not have any windows.
I think the scene was meant to infer a quickie wedding a quickie honeymoon and to see where Ed Harris' character stood on religion/salvation was concerned. He seemed not to care for the church or the government. (He was told that a patriot would drink vodka, and he said he drinks what he likes.) It also foreshadowed the groom dropping his ring?
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