Sunnyside kitchen

The Masaryk Case: the Murder of Democracy in Czechoslovakia * * * *

2010-05-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

World War II altered forever Americans "world-view" and how we view international conflicts and war. Though easily forgotten, Americans themselves were of an "isolationist" view before WWII. A poll in Dec. 25, 1938 found Americans 6 to 1 against sending troops to Europe; "It's not our business!" was the universal view. Munich 1938 was the beginning of a change[2] -- because it was such a terrible betrayal and because of Jan Masaryk's eloquent writings and speeches on his country's plight. Today few outside the Czech Republic and Slovakia would recognize the name of Jan Masaryk, but in 1938 and during WWII, he was a well-known diplomat and radio voice in America and Britain. A BBC radio address by Jan Masaryk on August 27, 1939 as Germany threatens to invade Poland:

Czech Ambassador In London On Poland Situation – 1939-08-27 BBC

After WWII, Jan Masaryk returned to Czechoslovakia to help save democracy in his country and prevent takeover by the communist party and imposition of a totalitarian government. On March 10, 1948, Jan Masaryk was murdered[1] and the communist party took over the government.

Written by an American journalist, this book tells the story of the events of those tumultuous years and the events and people surrounding his death. The interviews and research for the book took place during the summer and autumn of 1968 -- a rare window during which a Western journalist could travel and talk with people in Czechoslovakia. During the 1950s, the Iron Curtain was an Iron Wall for people outside the communist bloc. Travel into the communist bloc from the West was difficult and once inside, speaking with people was next to impossible because the consequences for speaking with a Westerner were harsh. No one spoke freely except to their closest and most trusted friends. It was a cold gray never ending winter. But then in the summer of 1968, a miraculous thawing, the Prague Spring, occurred in Czechoslovakia. Restrictions on speech were lifted and for a brief few months the Czechoslovaks were free to speak out. During that summer of 1968, an American journalist went to Czechoslovakia to investigate one of this great intrigues of end of World War II, the death of Jan Masaryk. Her book, "The Masaryk Case", is about what she discovered during her investigations and interviews, but much more than that, it is a rare glimpse into the communist bloc during the middle of the Cold War.

The central character, Jan Masaryk was the son of Tomas Masaryk. Tomas Masaryk founded the Czechoslovak democracy after WWI and was the first Czechoslovak president. At the time, that is during WWI in the 1920s, Czechoslovakia was in some ways the adopted child of the United States. The U.S. was instrumental in helping guide Czechoslovakia to democracy after WWI, and the first Czechoslovak constitution was signed in New York City. The Masaryk family had a number of connections to America including close relatives there. During the 1940s, the time during which much of the story in this takes place, Tomas Masaryk was already revered as a great statesman and leader. To the Czechoslovaks, he was (and still is) revered like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln are revered in the U.S.

His son, Jan, however was an incorrigible playboy with seemingly none of the talents of his great father. In Jan's late teens, he was sent by his family to America to make his own way in life -- and presumably teach him a few lessons. Jan lived 10 years in America, working in menial clerk jobs. In his late 20s, Jan returned home and was promptly drafted into WWI and served in Austria. After the war, Jan continued his playboy ways but began to assume some of the responsibilities foisted upon him by his lineage as the son of a national hero. He took a position as a diplomat in the government of Benes, the 2nd Czechoslovak president. Jan perhaps would have remained just the playboy son of Tomas Masaryk in the Czechoslovak national memory if it were not for Munich 1938 and its aftermath. As it was, he became the embodiment of the tragedy of Czechoslovakia in WWII, and his death/murder became an allegory for the murder and betrayal of Czechoslovakia.

Munich 1938. In one of the 20th century's great betrayals, William Chamberlain -- the prime minister of Britain at the time -- sacrificed Britain's ally, Czechoslovakia, to Hitler in an attempt to appease Hitler and preserve peace. Czechoslovakia's defenses along her western border were handed over to Germany and the Czechoslovaks were ordered not to resist. Once it became clear that Czechoslovakia's allies (those with whom she had mutual military assistance treaties), England, France and Russia, would not come to her aid, she was quickly dismembered by her neighbors. Four months after Munich, she was an occupied country. Her resources were sent to Germany, her industry was serving Germany, and her population was enslaved to serve the Reich. One of the most industrialized countries before the war, she would go on to become the arms factory for Germany during the war.

Jan Masaryk's was serving as a diplomat in London at the time, and he became the voice of Czechoslovakia's tragedy. He spoke English fluently and without accent, and gave many radio speeches during that time. From one of his radio addresses after Munich:

Text of the radio address in the video above: “You will see things happening in my little country diametrically opposed to everything my father stood for and I humbly but proudly stand for today. And I beg of you to understand it. My people were terribly hurt. They were suddenly told, with very little ceremony, that they must shut up and give up. Otherwise – it was a terrible otherwise… This is another job for the historians. I am not really complaining. I am just trying to explain in simple words what went on in the heart of the simple Czech and Slovak, man and woman, who trusted their allies and their friends and quite suddenly found themselves alone, bereft and destitute in a blizzard of harshness.”

This book was fascinating to me because it told about the life of Jan Masaryk and the crucial pre- and post-WWII years involving Czechoslovakia. But it also tells a fascinating story about the Czechoslovak mindset in the late 1960s and about how people processed the war and the post-war betrayals and upheavals. The thing that comes up repeatedly is how Czechoslovaks who lived through the war and post-war period were trying deal with their own feelings of complicity in their downfall. The people she interviews have a sense that the Czechoslovaks did not really resist the Germans. In the sense that there was no great partisan movement as in some other Slavic countries, e.g. Poland and Belarus. This is not to say there weren't partisans and that there are not examples of courageous resistance, but the Czechs feel that they tended to take the easier (and less lethal) ways out. Upon invasion, the government quickly aligned with Germany--true the alternative was terrible. Later it aligned with Russia--again the alternative was terrible.

But they Czechs she interviews express a lurking sense that their country and they themselves were always making a Faustian bargain with some devil or another. On the other hand, the Czech Republic was the only German-annexed country that did not provide troops for the Reich Army. Every other annexed country did: Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Poland. The Czechoslovaks that the journalists interviews bring this up themselves and are obviously trying to process all these conflicting views of themselves. They seem large unsuccessful in this attempt.

--EEH, May 19, 2010

________________________________________________
Radio Prague article about the 60th anniversary
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/101758

Radio broadcasts
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/11875

http://archiv.radio.cz/english/talking/16-11-99.html

[1] Change in the official verdict: murder
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/49113

[2] A sea change in public opinion about strict neutrality (including no arms shipments to England) occurred after the Munich agreement. This change in public opinion is reviewed from the perspective of late 1939 in the article:
Influences of World Events on U.S. "Neutrality" Opinion, Philip E. Jacob, The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Mar., 1940), pp. 48-65. In a short period of 8 weeks public opinion switched from high levels of support for complete neutrality to the opinion that the US should support England and ship weapons to England and France to resist Germany. This change in public opinion did not however extend to sending troops. Resistance to sending troops remained very high--ca. 95% against and ca 80% against EVEN if England and France looked like they would lose. After Munich, this erodes a bit to 84% and 54% (if E and F are losing). But by the end of 1939, opinion switched back to extremely high resistance to sending troops (unless the US is attacked). However, the change in public opinion concerning arm shipments to England did have an effect. The arms embargo that prevented weapons from being sold to England was lifted on November 4, 1939 (via modification of the Neutrality Act). For reference, Germany invaded Poland on Sept 1, 1939 and England declared war on Germany on Sept 3, 1939.

History of the German Freikorps * * *

2008-07-03T22:12:00.000-07:00

A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis (at Amazon)
The book begins at the end of WWI as civil unrest is spreading within Germany
due to widespread dissatisfaction with the war among the civilians and the soldiers. During this time, there was a strong communist/revolutionary movement within the naval soldiers and within the working class. As with the Russian communist revolution, the German communist revolution-that-wasn't started with mutinies aboard naval ships. Towards the end of WWI, losing the war seemed inevitable and naval soldiers began to balk at dying for a lost cause. The first large mutiny occurred at Kiel on October 29, 1918 when the navy ordered a last, and at that point suicidal, battle against the British blockade. The 'Red' soldiers took over the ships and the port. This revolt was put down by the Kaiser but unrest continued to spread -- until the Kaiser was forced into exile on November 9, 1919 and the monarchy was replaced by a fragile republic, the Wiemar Republic.
Out of this chaos, the Friekorps were born.

The young republic was facing multiple uprising from various revolutionary groups: the communists, the Spartacists, the Red naval soldiers and the Workers' parties. These groups were engaging in mass revolts in Berlin and were taking over government offices. The regular army was ineffective and riddled with 'Red' sympathizers. Instead ex-military officers formed their own scratch militia, called Freikorps or Free Corps. These were made up of young, hard men who had been tempered in the trenches of WWI. These newly minted Freikorps were sent to quell the civil unrest -- with a heavy hand. The Freikorps became famous for their violence and independence -- and their virulent disdain for the Wiemar Republic government. At their height in 1920, there were about half a million Freikorps soldiers in militia of various sizes up to battalion strength. Some of these only lasted a few months, while others lasted to the Versailles Treaty after which they were eventually absorbed into the regular Army.

"A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler" tell sthe history of the Friekorps from their inception in 1919 to their official dissolution in 1920 by the Versailles Treaty through their change to illegal political terrorist militia in the 1920s and then to their final end in the summer of 1934 when the Nazis carried out a purge known as the Night of Long Knives. The first half of the book is mostly about their various military actions up to 1920: from their military action in Poland to mercilessly putting down the Ruhr Red revolts in the spring of 1920. The second half of the book concerns the post-Versailles Treaty period. The Versailles Treaty strictly limited the number of soldiers that Germany was allowed to maintain, and the Wiemar government was certainly not inclined to turn a blind eye to the Freikorps. The Friekorps were a threat to the government, and had been involved in multiple putz attempts to overthrown the republican government and replace it with a fascist government.

By the early 1920s, the majority of the Freikorps had been disbanded or integrated into the Wehrmacht. However, many Freikorps evolved into illegal anti-republican groups and some of these were terrorist right-wing groups that that assassinated republican officials. These illegal Friekorps groups were important to the nascent National Socialist Party (Nazis). Specifically, the Bavarian Freikorps were critical in the Munich Beerhaus putz in 1923 when Adolf Hitler attempted to seize power by force. After this failed, and Hitler sent to prison, Hitler decided to seek power within the political system and distanced himself from the more unruly elements of the Freikorps. Nonetheless many Freikorps officers went on to become leaders in the Nazi party and of the SS.

This book was a real eye-opener for me. I was not aware of the extent of civil unrest in Germany at the end of WWI or of the communist revolts that occurred in 1919 and the early 1920s. The history of these revolts gave me a very different image of pre-WWII Germans than I had before. In Berlin Diary, the memoir of a US journalist, we see only the stereotypical view of German citizens fawning over Hitler in mass assemblies and there is certainly no evidence of widespread resistance. The history of the Freikorps shows a completely different German citizenry. For example, in March 1920 in what is known as the Kapp Putz, a Freikorps militia tried to overthrow the republican government by force and succeeded in taking over the government headquarters in Berlin and sending the leadership running. However, they were faced with massive passive resistance by government employees who stalled in carrying out their orders. Then a Berlin-wide strike was called and the city was shut down. After a few days of civilian resistance, the putz leaders were forced to leave. On the other hand, the image we see of the Freikorps is striking similar to that seen later in the Nazi party and SS. Lieutenant Mann, an officer of the Freikorps leading the failed Kapp Putz, said afterwards "If we had only shot more people [meaning civilians], everything would have been alright." It was a lesson they put to use in quelling the Ruhr revolt a few weeks later and one that the Nazis took to heart also.

--EEH

Hanover Street *

2008-06-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

Hanover Street (DVD on Amazon)
What can I say? I was overcome with Indy nostalgia. Last week, I went to see the new Indy IV movie and so thoroughly enjoyed it that I decided to re-watch Indy I. Alas, as I expected, the local video store was out of it. Thus I found myself poking around on Netflix Instant Viewing for a Harrison Ford movie to watch. My choices were Air Force 1 (seen it and hate it), Devil's Own (seen it and hate it), or Hanover Street, a 1979 movie WWII romance movie with Harrison Ford and Christopher Plummer. That sounded kind of interesting. Reviews suggested it was lite-romance fluff but entertaining to people who like that sort of stuff. I wasn't sure if I was the sort of movie viewer who likes that sort of stuff, but I decided to find out.

Wow. This was unbelievable horrible. The sets and costumes were great, but the the two leads (Ford and some woman) delivered their lines like they were reading them. There was negative charisma between them and they were supposed to be madly in love. And the plot...ok, I can't criticize the plot. Inane, sappy plots are part of the lite-romance genre. That said, the plot was inane and sappy. Christopher Plummer was alright, or at least not painful to watch, but one wonders why he would have taken such a role in 1979, after blockbuster roles such as in Sound of Music and Pink Panther.

So really avoid this one. There are many other entertaining mindless romance movies for you to enjoy -- no need to revisit the late-1970s for that. Only see this if you are curious if you can see a glimmer of Han Solo (1977) two years later. Answer: No. Oh wait, there is a reason to see this. I've watched many of Ford's movies over the years (even the terrible ones like this), and this one has the best snogging scene I know of. He gets into it -- unlike later films where he fakes it.

Idi i smotri (Come and See, 1985) * * * * *

2008-04-28T22:14:00.000-07:00

Come and See (link to DVD on Amazon)
Ethnic cleansing of the Slavs living in the Eastern European lands including Poland, the Baltics, Ukraine, Belarus, Czechoslovakia and western Russian (to the Urals) was outlined in Hilter's Generalplan Ost as part of his long-term plan for creation of Lebensraum for Greater Germany. This plan involved removal of 70-90% of the existing Slavic population in these areas. Much of this was to be carried out after the war (after Germany's presumed victory) but pacification and elimination of certain areas was to be carried out during the war, in particular in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus.

Belarus (was Belarussia) has the sad distinction of being the country where the Generalplan Ost and the genocide of Slavs was most effectively implemented during WWII. 25-33% of the population of Belarus was killed in the war (about 2.2 million killed), the Belarus intelligentsia and Jewish segments of society were entirely eliminated, every city was devastated and large portions of Belarus were laid waste in a scorched earth policy (Belarus official website on the genocide). In some of the worst war crimes committed in WWII, in628 villages across Belarus SS troops rounded up and burned alive every inhabitant as punishment for partisan actions. Another 4667 villages were burnt to the ground with less than 100% of their inhabitants killed. The website on the Khatyn memorial even has archival video taken by SS troops of the plan in action: Plan Ost.

Come and See (1985) is a movie about WWII as experienced in Belarus. It follows a teenage boy who joins the partisans. It shows the horror of the SS annihilation of villages through the eyes of this naive boy. As you might expect, there is a fairly well developed partisan-mythology in Belarus (Robin Hood with a gun). However although Come and See is sympathetic to the partisans, this is not your typical air-brushed film of the heroic partisans saving the day from the evil Germans. Come and See tries to paint a realistic picture of war, without any romance. In that sense, it is has a documentary quality almost, and like all "realistic" war films, it is decidedly anti-war. There is nothing, nothing remotely romantic about being a partisan in this movie because war itself is horror. During the course of the 2 days covered by the movie, we watch as Florya ages physically before our eyes. With each new horror -- the death of someone next to him, watching villagers rounded up and burned, the loss of his family, the gang rape of young girl -- his face becomes distraught, then crazed and finally wooden.

Come and See is one of the most famous modern movies about the Eastern Front. It is very well done and the cinematography and acting is excellent. But I had been warned by Kaja that Come and See is a disturbing movie. It was, however, not as distressing as I was bracing for. I was expecting to be forced to watch people burning alive, children getting their heads split open with rifle butts, or the gang rape of young girls. We see the after effect of these things and we see dead bodies, but the film doesn't actually show these horrors happening. I never needed to hit the "stop" button on the remote in order to avoid any really distressing scenes. That is a real accomplishment because the temptation would be to want to 'rub people's faces' in the horror: "look, look, LOOK!" But it is more powerful, I think, because instead it focuses on how Florya reacts and copes (or not) to seeing these horrors.

Overall this a must-see movie for those interested in the Eastern Front and the effect of WWII on Eastern Europe, along with Stalingrad, Mein Kreig, and Shoah.

References

Generalplan Ost
Hilter's Generalplan Ost
Online documents and transcripts about Generalplan Ost
Except from Janusz Gumkowkski and Kazimierz Leszczynski's POLAND UNDER NAZI OCCUPATION
Belarus : a partisan reality show
The Khatyn massacre website

Pupendo * * *

2008-04-22T18:51:00.000-07:00

Pupendo (link to DVD on Amazon)
"One day a little tapeworm poked her head out of an anus, looked around at the big wide world. She popped back in and raced to find her mother. 'Oh, mommy tapeworm what is that great and lovely blueness that is all around outside?' 'That my darling is the sky.' 'Oh mommy tapeworm, what is that beautiful yellow orb in the sky?' 'That my darling is the sun.' 'But why mommy, why do we live here, here in the dark?' 'Oh my darling, because this, this is our HOME...yes, my darling, up someone's ass.' -- a joke told by an insurance appraiser from the movie Pupendo.

This movie is a comedy-drama about the 1980s in Czechoslovakia, and that little joke sums up the Czech perspective pretty well. Yes, we're living in crap, but nonetheless it's home. The story follows a talented Prague artist, Bedrich Mara, who in the heady years around the 1968 Prague Spring was one of the top artists in the country with his work shown in the west. But he refused to make the necessary compromises (join the communist party presumably) and has fallen out of favor with the authorities. He loses his job, is ostracized from the art community, and barely brings home enough for his family by making kitschy clay things, like a money bank that looks like a butt. The movie tells the story of a summer in which on a bit of a lark, he brings home a bum. The bum turns out to be an art historian caught at a particularly low point. And through a bitter-sweet series of events, he helps Bedrich return to the international art world -- although at costs that have a certain black humor to them.

Pupendo is by the same director that made Pelisky, and it feels like a follow-up. Pelisky was a comedic-drama about life in the summer of 1968, while Pupendo is a drama-comedy about life in the 80s. But I think one reason Pelisky was more successful was that Pelisky combined funny with a very obvious tragedy -- the 1968 invasion. In Pupendo, the juxtaposition of funny and serious is not as effective -- perhaps because the tragedy of the 1970s and 1980s, the post-1968 period of "Normalization", is difficult to capture on film unlike tanks rolling down streets. "Normalization" is an Orwellian term because it refers to squelching the "abnormal" ideas of freedom of speech and civil liberty that dominated the the attempt at humanizing Czech communism (Jan-Aug 1968). I once heard a Czech describe the difference between the Stalinist oppression in the 1950s versus the Normalization oppression in the 1970s. In the 1950s, you were executed but there was a certain logic and predictability to what activities would get you killed. In the 1970s, you were ostracized rather than executed, but punishment was completely capricious. You think you are fine, and then some innocuous comment, or forgetting to put up a flag, gets you on the blacklist.

For this reason, I think the film probably has mainly home-market appeal, unlike Pelisky which is likely to be quite funny and tragic to non-Czechs also. Also Pelisky has Miroslav Donutil, one of the most famous Czech comedic actors, who is hilarious in the movie.

Pupendo refers to a Czech "game" in which a heavy coin -- in this case a 5kc piece which is about like a Sacajawea or Loonie -- is thrown swiftly down onto the bare belly of the "recipient". If done correctly, the coin lands flat and gives a frightful sting. Video of pupendo being played. Why this movie-vignette about life in the 1980s in Czechoslovakia is named after this slightly sadomasochist game is unclear. Presumably it is meant as some kind of metaphor, but I couldn't quite get it.

I purchased the DVD in the Czech Republic where it is widely available in video stores. Purchasing or renting it outside of CZ is difficult, but in the U.S. you can try searching on www.eBay.com; you'll sometimes find it for sale there.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress * * *

2008-04-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (DVD on Amazon)
Not wanting to sleep the other night, I flipped through Netflix instant viewing and saw that "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" was available. The book is excellent -- a real page-turner. It tells the autobiographical story of two young men (about 19 yrs old) who are sent to a remote village in the mountains to be "re-educated" in the early 1970s. This was part of Mao's Cultural Revolution during which time he waged an all out assault on anyone with higher education, i.e. doctors, lawyers, musicians, engineers, writers, etc. They were labeled as "reactionaries" or "black elements". Their houses confiscated and property destroyed. They were forced into menial labor and all aspects of their lives constrained. In the late 1960s, Mao instituted the "Up to the mountains and down to the villages" policy. The children of the intelligentsia were sent away to be work in the countryside and not allowed to study. This period lasted 10 yrs and effectively exiled a entire generation.

This film only touches briefly on the horror and degradation inflicted upon people by the Cultural Revolution -- during a scene in which one of the boys breaks down and cries. Instead it is a coming of age story about two boys, well young men. Luo, the son of a dentist, is handsome and witty. Ma, the son of a surgeon, is quiet and an excellent violinist (who later escapes to France and becomes a violinist in real life). One funny scene occurs in the beginning when the villagers are examining the boys stuff. They find the violin and are about to burn it, when Luo saves it and offers that Ma will play Mozart for them. "Hmm, Mozart, that sounds reactionary", says the village chief. "No, the song is 'Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao'".

The film follows about a year of their four years in the mountains. During this time, they are saved from the intellectual poverty of village life by a suitcase full of illegal Western novels -- Stendhal, Kipling, Dostoevsky, and ... Balzac. Such books were destroyed by the communists so were very hard to come by and obviously would be a one-way ticket to jail if discovered. They boys acquire the suitcase by stealing it from another boy, the son of a poet, who is being re-educated in a nearby village. These books change their lives -- and the life of a young woman, the granddaughter of the local tailor. The boys fall in love with her and decide to educate her by reading the books to her. This has a series of unexpected consequences and one of the themes of the book and film is the power of education to change a person. Although in this case, it is not education per se, but rather opening one's eyes to the existence of a wider world.

The film follows the book quite closely, but diverges at the end by telling us what happened to the boys. Ma leaves China and emigrates to France where he becomes a somewhat successful violinist. Luo becomes a dentist like his father. The little seamstress left for the city and eventually emigrated to Hong Kong. This adds nice closure that the film was missing.

Overall I found the film entertaining. I had not intended to watch the whole thing in one sitting (it was after midnight when I started watching), but I ended up doing so as I was so engaged.

Watched on Netflix instant viewing. Subtitled.

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)* * * *

2008-02-25T12:34:00.001-08:00

Judgment at Nuremberg (DVD at Amazon)
It took me a really long time to watch this film, even though it was an Oscar winning film on a topic I'm fascinated by, namely the Nuremberg trials. It's 3 1/2 hours long and basically the whole thing is filmed in the courtroom. I just didn't see how it would not bore me to tears. But Kaja was visiting and was interested to have seen it too. Neither of us wanted to see it; we wanted to have seen it as part of our filmatic education. So with a partner to bolster our courage in the face of boredom, a six-pack and a big bowl of popcorn, we decided to work our way through it over three nights and set the DVD rolling at 11pm one night. We were transfixed through whole film and ended up watching it straight through, not finishing until after 2am.

Why is this such a good movie? Gosh, it's really hard to put your finger on. The acting is great. Spencer Tracy is very believable as a well meaning and thoughtful small-town judge, who is really trying to understand the German people and is trying to not pre-judge them. The German lawyer is played by Maximilian Schell, an Austrian-born actor. He is magnetic in the film, and he won an Oscar fo r Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance. The screenplay is also thoughtful and doesn't make any cheap shots (unlike the abysmal Taking Sides, which was on a similar topic). The screenplay also garnered an Oscar.

Oh, yes, the plot. There is a trial of three Nazi judges who are being charged with going along with the Nazis and thereby allowing the Nazis to pervert justice so that instead of communists, jews, disabled, etc being just summarily locked away, their persecution was given the patina of a proper and fair legal hearing. Two of the main cases being discussed have to do with forced sterilization. Mainly we (the viewer) are sitting in on the court cases and listening to the arguments by each side. There are a few scenes in prison with the three men on trial, a few scenes of parties, but by and large it's in a courtroom. But it is riveting commentary on the moral culpability of professionals within a terrible system.

I didn't feel like the film tried to tell me what to think and how to judge the men on trial. In the end, I sympathized with many of the arguments of the German lawyer, and I felt the American judge took a moral high-ground that is a bit unrealistic*. I think that was one of the points of the film, to make one think about these issues and show that it is not so cut-and-dried. The path to moral corruption is walked one little step at a time and at each turn, you may even be making what you think is the most moral choice in that situation. So in fact, when you finally do become an active participant in the actions of a corrupt State, it can be almost by surprise and without you ever really making a conscious choice to be such a participant.

*Kaja's comment: This was mostly likely requisite for the era in which it was released. It was a time where the US stood as an ultimate moral compass and empowered to pass judgment by being the victors. If we think about the how the nature of our politics and public has changed from then to now, I think that we would see our protagonist judge in a 2008 film tested and succumb to the human sympathies that we extend to other individuals in the middle of personal dilemmas.

Derzu Uzala (1975)* * *

2008-02-25T11:34:00.001-08:00

Dersu Uzala (link to DVD on Amazon)
Derzu Uzala (1975) is a film by the great Japenese director, Akira Kurosawa, that is set right around the turn of the century (1902 to 1910) in eastern Siberia. It is the story of a Russian surveyor who is mapping the far east and north and is based on the memoirs of a Russian explorer, Vladimir Arsenyev. During one expedition, the surveying group runs into a native hunter, Derzu, who becomes their guide. He is a gentle soul who has known hardship--his wife, son and daughter died from smallpox years ago. Since then he has become a hunter/trapper.

The movie follows the surveyor and Derzu through a series of trips and adventures through the wild Russian landscape--though dense dark forests, wild rivers, and the endless northern tundra. I watched it on a very small screen which was a shame; the landscapes deserve to be seen on a big screen. Derzu is quite old and after a number of years, he loses his keen eyesight and can no longer hunt. The surveyor takes him into his home with his wife and son in a the city, but Derzu is like a trapped bird in the city. Eventually he must return to the woods.

To my eyes, the movie was mainly about grand nature and the smallness of man within it. The part of the film where Derzu and Arsenyev are in the tundra and get caught out after dark especially plays on this theme. The turn of the century was a time of enormous change in Russia--just before the 1914 revolution and the start of the industrial period. The death of Derzu can be seen as a metaphor for the death of nature that occurred at this time. That this is a surveyor team can also be seen as a metaphor--nature's mysteries are reduced to lines on a piece of paper.

Most of the outdoor filming occurs in the Russian far east (just west of Japan) in the Primorsky Kray region. This is interesting to see. Filming also occurs in Siberia, although I could not find out exactly where. Kurosawa really captures the vastness of Siberian tundra.

Why 3 stars? This is considered a classic film by a great director. However, my own take was that the cinematography was super but the acting and story was nothing special. I would watch it again but this time with a projector so I could enjoy the shots of the vast Russian landscape.

This clip from the film will give you a sense of the film:

The Greatest Czech: Jara Cimrman

2008-02-07T18:42:00.000-08:00

Commentary by Kaja

In the heat of an early and humid summer, I had my first encounter with the famed Jara Cimrman, the Czech Genius. I’d heard the tales and only seen the dents in the sofa left by Cimrman’s fame before, but last night I went to a production of one of his plays, AKT.

I emerged from the show, but this elusive Bigfoot of great minds remained as ephemeral as before. The reason? The persona of Cimrman is a creation of the great Czech actors Zdeněk Svěrák and Ladislav Smoljak. They created the character during an era of satirical self-reflection and the transitional post-WWII era. While originally intended as a caricature of Czech people, history, and culture, he became and remains an immensely popular national hero. This is most evident when considers that Jara Cimrman would have won the Czech Television contest to choose THE GREATEST CZECH. Including candidates from pop-singers, kings, and other national heroes, Cimrman was disqualified from the competition only because he never truly existed. The prize went to the runner up, King Charles IV, founder of the Charles University and Charles Bridge in Prague during the 1300s.

The story goes that Cimrman was ridiculed and eschewed throughout his life. Thus, he passed into and out of this life understated and with only a bang or two. However, as with many great geniuses, Cimrman rose to glory only after his death when, in 1966, Dr. Evzen Hedvabny (Dr. Silky) discovered a locked chest containing many of Cimrman’s works. The brilliance of these works were instantly recognizable—needing little more than a glance at a title—and Cimrman became recognized as one of the world’s most accomplished men (certainly the greatest for the Czechs) as a poet, a composer, playwright, not to mention a philosopher and inventor.

In order to further expound and present Cimrman’s greatness to society, a panel of experts (in each field) was assembled to lecture on these accomplishments. Thus, the composition of the performance was as follows: lecture, intermission, and performance. Most likely needless to say, the panel of experts was composed of the actors. This first section was perhaps the most interesting and entertaining. Playing on inter-discipline tensions and differences, the academic territoriality became increasingly evident with each presentation. Of course, each performance was replete with stereotypes; most notably, the spacey engineer.

The second half was a performance of one of Cimrman’s discovered plays—contextualized, of course, by the preceding lecture. AKT, as the play is named, presents an elderly couple in a painter’s loft atelier. In one corner is a covered painting. The couple is anxious. Mind you, this is a seasoned and well-respected, all-male ensemble. From here on out, imagine all events saturated with cross-gender humor.

Much waiting and three guests later, the plot thickens. The first guest is a teacher with a touch of pedophilia. The second, a fat realtor. And the last, a sex-crazed psychoanalytic. Each believes that their invitation is related to their field and that they have arrived at this mysterious place, on some mysterious day, at some mysterious time to make a little extra money under the table.

The rest of the play revolves around an uncompleted painting of a nude woman: the elderly wife as a young woman. The elderly artist states, that each time he set out to finish the painting he was seized by a fit of passion and that one of the three guests was the result of these “artistic” sessions. And there we have it! The plot: gentleman, I am your father. She is your mother.

I am not averse to sexual insinuation and lowbrow humor. However, when juxtaposing the two halves, I find the turn of phrase and intellectual foray more interesting than the latter. An example of the intellectual texture is the layers of meaning captured by the name "Cimrman". The name conveys a duality of heritage that is representative of the Czech nation. Jara Cimrman was the son of an Austrian mother, Marlen Jelinek (a Czech name meaning young stag) and a Czech father, Leopold Zimmerman (a German name meaning carpenter). The name “Cimrman” is the Czech phonetic version of his father's German name. While considering himself Czech and associating most with his Czech heritage, he is so confused by his ancestry and education that he speaks German with Czech-isms and Czech with German-isms, supported by a fair number of quotations on a number of topics. This linguistic word play persists throughout, even in the text of AKT itself. This first part, I believe, most fully engenders Czech people, history, and zeitgeist.

The most striking part of the performance was realizing a connection between Cimrman and another Czech folk hero: the good soldier Svejk. Both characters are created personas supposedly representative of the Czech nation. Yet, Svejk and Cimrman are antithetical. One is the greatest Czech in accomplishment and societal contribution. The other is a bumbling good-natured fool who, despite his repeated screw-ups, always manages to survive and escape harsh consequences. Cimrman’s success is his active and intellectual engagement with the world and its events. Svejk’s success stems from his complete disengagement from anything beyond his immediate surroundings. I have puzzled over this ostensible contradiction since the performance. I have yet to reconcile how both can stand shoulder-to-shoulder, filling the same role in modern Czech folklore.

I recommend that everyone read Jaroslav Hasek’s The Good Soldier Svejk. I would also recommend that you visit the Theater of Jara Cimrman, but unfortunately this is limited to those who understand Czech (or Slovak).

Zerophilia *

2008-02-01T11:45:00.001-08:00

Zerophilia (DVD on Amazon)
This is a peculiar movie about a young man with a rare genetic disease that causes him to begin to turn into a female (large busted) when he becomes aroused. An orgasm causes him to stay female, until his(now her) next orgasm when he, I mean she, turns back into a male. What on earth brought me to this movie? Kaja suggested it. He, it turns out, had never seen it and I believe his suggestion was meant as a practical joke of some sort. I couldn't believe I watched the whole thing, but the premise is quite funny and I was hoping that something interesting would happen and the movie would develop a plot. It doesn't; the premise is the whole movie.

The trailer implies that it might be racy. It's not. Nothing racy happens and, except for a brief scene when the zerophiliac fellow rips off his shirt and discovers he has grown silicon enhanced breasts, all the skin (and action) you'll see in the movie is what you see in the trailer:

If despite this tepid review, you decide to watch it. Come prepared with ample libations to make it more interesting.

Taking Sides *

2008-02-01T11:43:00.002-08:00

Taking Sides (link to DVD at Amazon)
Eli: I was really looking forward to this film. It is by Istvan Szabo who is one is one of my favorite directors, and it is on a topic that I find fascinating, the culpability of the artist or intellectual within a totalitarian system. It's also about the trials in Germany after WWII and that's really interesting to me. But this film sucked. The characters were one-dimensional and the acting was flat. The American officer, who was trying to catch and punish Germans who had 'collaborated' with the Nazis, was a complete caricature and totally unbelievable. Watching this was torture. What a different experience than the 1950s film Judgment at Nuremberg! Kaja, what was your take on this?

Kaja: Absolutely right, Eli. I couldn't agree more. The central motive of this movie seems to be to remake the classic, Judgment at Nuremberg, but with a different type of intelligentsia: the musician. Hey, they'd have a great soundtrack to boot. BUT, the film in essence rehashes an age old argument similar to the one about Wagner being a Nazi supporter, despite his inability to control how his music was manipulated. Rather, it was his sister who promoted him in the public eye. While she was an avid Hitler supporter, how can we begrudge her initial overtures (pun intended) to the public to support the brilliant work of her brother? Holding Wagner accountable is like holding Nietzsche accountable for the fact that his writings were disseminated to German recruits as they marched off to the frontier.

It's not possible, however, to completely dismiss the case that the movie is describing: it happened and is about very real people. But the manner in which the movie, and the characters within it, attempt to twist music's connection to mean so much more in supporting a regime than it did is rather sad and misguided. It overlooks the fact that music both inspires and heals, much more than it incites people to battle (those are simple fanfares). I guess I am mainly left guessing why Szabo portrayed his characters the way he did. The American is an abrasive, self-righteous fellow that makes me wretch; his obsession is to humiliate a dignified and brilliant maestro. Okay... spot on. Bravo, Szabo, you're very perceptive indeed. The Germans are two young people, a boy and a girl, who fall in love. Aw, how sweet. BUT they harbor secret sympathies with the poor conductor. Hmmm... thus they are two-faced, secretive and can't be trusted. So, who is the viewer to look toward for inspiration? Not the tyrannical and ignorant American, of course. Certainly not the weak, secretive and feeble German couple. No, we look to the solid dignity and pride of a musician being humiliated. So we have a black-and-white situation: artist=good; judgmental American=bad. The transparent way that Szabo manipulates the sympathies of his audience, is cheap and doesn't admit that it is a messy moral situation. Really, while this movie was beautiful to look at, it had me squirming in my seat (and not in the good way). I see no redeeming value that it may have. Even the music was cliche.

So there you have it. Don't bother with this one.

Mysterious Skin * * * *

2008-02-01T11:43:00.001-08:00

Mysterious Skin (link to DVD on Amazon)
Mysterious Skin tells the story of the ramifications of the sexual abuse of two eight-year old boys by their Little League coach. The coach grooms one of the boys and has a summer of 'encounters' with the boy, Neil. Neil seems to enjoy and embrace the experience (this is admittedly distressing to watch) and he even becomes the man's accomplice in luring other boys into the coach's apartment and them helping groom those boys. The other boy, Brian, is one of those boys whom Neil helps lure into the coach's apartment. Brian is no less traumatized by the experience, but in a completely different way than Neil.

The movie focuses mostly on Neil as an 18-year old and the fateful summer with the coach is shown in flashbacks. As a young man, Neil looks back on this summer as his dearest and most important childhood experience. During a conversation with a close friend, Neil says that the coach was the only one who has truly loved him. Neil's friend objects that Neil was 8-years old and is about to point out that this was abuse not love. Neil aggressively defends the experience and says "that it is a huge, huge part of who he is." The latter statement is indeed the truth, and through watching Neil as a young man we see the how true and tragic is this abuse masquerading as 'love' (ug). Neil becomes a male-prostitute and it becomes clear that by doing tricks with middle-aged men he is trying to recapture that summer. Indeed, Neil's whole life seems to revolve in some way around his obsession with that summer. It is only at the very end that Neil begins to gain some perspective -- this by meeting Brian and seeing how Brian was traumatized by what happened. Neil was an accomplice to that and he becomes critical in helping Brian remember and thus begin to heal.

This was one of the best movies I saw in 2007 (Kaja agreed that it was great too). The acting is phenomenal and the script is nuanced and excellent. As a parent, I normally would never watch a movie about child molestation -- there are some images you do not want in your head. However, Kaja picked out the movie; it was highly recommended by his friends although he did not know what it was about. As he sat down on the couch with the popcorn, he turned to me and said, "By the way, most people say this is a little disturbing." But by then the DVD was already spinning. Yes, the movie is a little disturbing. In case you are wondering, there are no images of crying children getting raped -- Neil is a willing participant. Yes, yes, the coach grooms and manipulates Neil so that he is willing. This is disturbing, but I found this more watchable than what happened to Brian. Fortunately, we do not actually see what happens to Brian (it is described). BUT, the film is NOT about child-molestation; it is about how two fascinating young men and how something in their youth made them who they are.

This is a great film and I recommend it highly with caveats. The first caveat is that you need to like difficult films about difficult topics, such as Trainspotting, Boys Don't Cry, or Monster. If you avoid films like that, then you'll want to avoid this one too. The second caveat is you need know that this film is sexually graphic. Neil is a male prostitute and about 25% of the film involves him during his tricks. There is no full-frontal nudity (though plenty backside), but you know exactly what he is doing and what is being done to him. It is not titillating; most of his clients seem to be overweight used-car salesmen types. The actual sexual encounters between the coach and Neil are shown by clever editing -- the child actors are never actually in the same shot as the coach except when they are talking early on. Instead the abuse is graphically described by Neil (at age 18).

You might want also check out other reviews...:
epinions
henrysheehan.com

Clip from the film (nothing bad besides some salty language):

Rented from Netflix

Családi tüzfészek (Family Nest, 1979) * *

2008-01-28T14:02:00.000-08:00

Family Nest (link to DVD on Amazon)
Bela Tarr is one of the most renown -- albeit unknown -- Hungarian directors of avant-garde film (the other more famous Hungarian director of this ilk is Miklos Jansco). I had seen Tarr's film Kárhozat (Damnation) a couple years ago, and that ranks as one of the most striking films that I have ever seen. I would try to describe it but others have already done it eloquently enough: a link to a blog entry on Tarr's Satantango.

The films, Satantango, Damnation and Werckmeister Harmonies, are famous art films which explore the metaphysical and mystical using bleak black-and-white cinamatography. But before these films, Tarr made a series of social realism films while he was still in his 20s. These are very different and were shot in a kind of film-verite style with handheld cameras and small filming spaces. I had never seen his early work, and Kaja agreed to watch it with me although I warned that it would not be a feel-good film. Well, Family Nest was an experience. Kaja and I sat on the couch in a daze after it was over. It was like we had been psychologically beaten upon for an hour. Oy.

The movie is set mostly in one small apartment where, because of the housing shortage in Hungary in the 1970s, three families are crammed together. Imagine the worst kind of family dynamics possible, that it what Family Nest, aka Family Cesspool, makes you an intimate part of for a little over an hour. The filming and directing is masterful -- you really feel like you are there; I even felt like I could smell it.

The self-created hell in the family nest is oppressive. Everyone is crammed altogether, and they argue non-stop. When the lights go out, the arguments finally stop but then other joys continue. The father-in-law is a slimy man who is constantly pressuring his daughter-in-law for sex and slips into his daughter-in-law's bed next to the sleeping 2-yr old granddaughter. Finally, the daughter-in-law's husband comes back from the army, which will hopefully put the brakes on the nightly visits. The daughter-in-law has a woman-friend over that evening and a couple hours after his return, the husband and his brother walk the woman home. They rape her and then the husband comes home and has sex with his wife. Awful.

The movie ends with a epilogue. The husband and wife have separated -- the relationship was strained for some reason (hmm, I wonder why?). We get close-ups monologues of each bemoaning the loss of the relationship. There is a sense that life is only getting worse.

I gave it 2 stars just because it was so painful to watch. Both Kaja and I have family in Eastern Europe and this struck a little close to home -- not the abuse and rape bits, but rather the negative effects that social upheaval and communism had on families and the tendency of the strain to bring out the worst in people. A friend who grew up in Romania during the communist era put it this way -- she felt like people during this era had all their compassion sucked out them simply because life was so hard and the system pitted everyone against each other even against your own family. The system made people ugly and cruel to each other and this movie captures that. But I do think, Family Nest is a must-see for Iron Curtain-era filmmaking. The directing is masterful.

Background on Bela Tarr from KinoEye
Review of the films of Bela Tarr

Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams (2005)* *

2007-12-07T11:58:00.002-08:00

Grbavica (link to DVD at Amazon)

****warning: this review is going to reveal the main plot twist****

I have yet to see a movie concerning the Bosnian War that is not flat out depressing. This one is no exception. The film starts with a meeting of a women's support group for women traumatized by the war. Mainly the women just sit there silently -- they get paid to come whether or not they speak. But their faces are frozen pictures of depression and brokenness. The camera zooms in on one middle aged woman -- like the others, her face is numb and her eyes dull.

Over the next hour, we see her difficult life as the single parent of a rebellious teenager. As we watch the ho-hum drama of daily life, the scars of the war are everywhere. The mother, Esma, takes on a job as a waitress to make extra money for a field trip for her daughter, Sara. There she meets a man who recognizes her. Turns out they had both been visiting the morgue to look at the exhumed bodies in search of their fathers. He is now a body-guard but had been a medical student before the war changed everything. At school, the kids whose fathers were killed in the war get a discount on the field trip. On and on, the signs of the war are everywhere.

Esma has always told Sara that her father was killed in the war. Sara is beginning to question this story. Sara and Esma argue incessantly about this and that. In one particularly ugly argument, Sara challenges her mother about her father. In her anger, Esma tells Sara the truth. She is the unwanted bastard child of the camps. The result of the nightly rapes that her mother suffered while at the camp. Once Esma tells the truth, the dam has been breached and the rest spills forth. How she would beat her belly to try to kill the baby...how she wanted to abandon Sara at the hospital, but her milk came in and to relieve it she nursed Sara and then could not abandon her.

Ug. To the movie's credit, it does not end predictably with the daughter blowing her brains out. What has happened has happened and life simply goes on. The truth is cathartic in the end for both, and the film ends on the happiest note possible, I suppose. Meaning life goes on. Happiness is perhaps no longer in the cards for the characters, but the weight of the terrible past is lifted slightly.

I gave the movie 2 stars since it was really painful to watch and Kaja would have berated me if I gave it more stars (he hated the movie). The acting however is good. Watched on Netflix Instant Viewing.

Eroica (1958)* * *

2007-12-07T11:58:00.001-08:00

Eroica (link to DVD at Amazon)
The very title of this film, Eroica (English title: Heroism), seems to be a sarcastic play on the meaning of heroism. The protagonists in the two short stories in this film are hardly what one would call heroes. The two stories are set during WWII. The movie was made in 1957, so just after Stalin died but Poland was still in the grips of communist censorship. The director is Andrzej Munk, who is apparently one of the Polish great directors although I don't know his work and he died in 1961. The film was meant to be a trilogy but ended up as a bilogy.

The first film (Scherzo alla Polacca) tells the story of a self-centered man who gets disenchanted with the idea of being a volunteer soldier in the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans in 1944. He sneaks off during basic training and goes back to his wife -- who it turns out has taken in a Hungarian officer as a lover. Ah so much for the myth of the brave partisan and his steadfast girl waiting for him at home. He is a coward, but perhaps that is sign of his sanity. Unwillingly, he is pressed into being a courier between a Hungarian brigade that wants to sneak weapons to the Polish partisans. Ultimately, the effort is futile. Unfortunately at the very end of the movie, the man makes a sappy turn-around in character and abandons his self-centered ways and goes to help the the uprising. It would have been more in character with the movie if the man remained cynical and flipped his finger at the uprising. I got the feeling that a censor prohibited such a cynical ending.

The second film (Ostinato Lugubre) tells the story of a group of Polish Officers who
are prisoners of war in a German camp. Most of them have been there about 5 years and they are all now missing a few marbles. The are treated well and eat enough, but the constant confinement, lack of privacy, and resulting "submarine fever" lead to depression and other mental illnesses. One man can no longer deal with the lack of privacy and "escapes" -- into some ductwork above the toilets. The others think he has really escaped and he becomes a symbol of hope and pride for the entire camp. Two men who know of it steal food for him and protect his secret, a secret that must be kept for the sake of the morale of the camp. All the while the escapee is slowly sinking into complete depression and insanity in his little hole. There is something deeply cynical and bitter about this story and I wonder if it was not meant as an allegory for life in communist Poland in the 1950s. This was the Stalinist period and life was very hard. People were not starving, but rather they were in a prison of the mind not unlike that in the POW camp depicted here.

This movie features prominently in The Red and the White: The Cinema of People’s Poland by Paul Coates, a book on the post-war cinema in Poland.

Ivanovo detstvo (Ivan's Childhood, 1962)* * * *

2007-12-07T11:57:00.001-08:00

Ivan's Childhood (link to DVD at Amazon)
In college, I watched Tarkovsky's films Solaris and Stalker, but since then I have avoided his films. I have always felt that I needed a film degree to be properly qualified to watch his films. People write long analyses of the shots, the sense or lack-thereof of time, the shadows, the strange mysticisms, the meaning of snow falling through an open roof, etc, etc. Ivan's Childhood, Tarkovsky's first feature length, is no exception. A simple search on the web will turn up in-depth analyses of the "psycho-pragmatic links between dream and reality" and their representation in Ivan's Childhood. Ok...think I'll watch that another day... So it was probably a good thing that I didn't notice that this was a Tarkovsky film. It was a Russian film on a boy's experience in WWII based on a memoir and it was made in 1962, during a relaxation of artistic censorship that occurred after Stalin's death. For these reasons, I was curious to see it.

Young Ivan is a boy of 12. His family has been killed in the war and he working as scout for the army. He slips across the frontlines into German territory and collects information on troop locations. He then slips back across the lines and reports in. The work is extremely dangerous and gruesome. As the film opens Ivan is hiding near the shores of the Dnieper River. It is night and he is waiting for his pick-up which will take him back to the Russian side. But something has delayed him, and he misses the pickup. He finds a log and swims the swirling river in the moonlight. He is picked up by a group of Soviet soldiers who do not know who he is. Ivan insists on seeing the military commander. Ivan is brash and rough and seems a little demented, but utterly fixated on his job. He gets pen and paper and immediately begins writing a report. He is a hardened soldier. But then we watch as he strips to take a bath -- his scrawny chest is bruised and we can see his ribs. He looks like a featherless bird. The image is powerful. He is child who war has been turned into something very wrong.

In the late 1940s, socialist-realist war propaganda films showed the heroic Red Army soldier defeating the Nazi hordes -- and the glorification of Stalin. These were films like The Oath, The Fall of Berlin, and The Battle of Stalingrad. But then in the late-1950s, after Stalin died and Khrushchev came into power, there was brief period of more artistic freedom known as "the Thaw" 1953-1967. During this period, there were films that "moved away from combat and focused instead on the individual ordeals and suffering of those whose lives are irretrievably crippled by war". Important films from this era include: The Cranes Are Flying (1957), Ballad of a Soldier (1959), Fate of a Man (1959), Father of the Soldier (1964) and Commisar (1968).

Ivan's Childhood (1962) falls into this period of thawing, and it certainly doesn't paint a pretty picture of war. Nonetheless it is a beautiful and visually striking film. Well worth watching especially given that it is a rare flower that bloomed during a brief thaw in a long artistic winter (couldn't resist making that metaphor...). With Khrushchev's forced resignation in the fall of 1964, spring ended and an early fall arrived. Dissidents were arrested. Things got progressively worse until the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia brought back a deep freeze -- that was to last until the late-1980s and the fall of communism.

Some links
A book on this interesting period of Russian film:
Soviet Cinema

A review of Russian film post 1920s
http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue09/features/russia2/

Berlin Diary (1941)* * * *

2007-11-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

Berlin Diary (link to book at Amazon)
At 21 in 1925, William Shirer left the States to work as a foreign journalist in India and Europe. 1933 he took off a year to be a beach bum in a little village in Spain with his wife, but the dollar took a hammering, their saving took a beating, and Shirer had to quickly get a job. He worked in Paris for a few months, at a reporting job that bored him to tears, but then in early 1934, he landed a better job in Berlin. Thus it came to be that he spent 7 years in Berlin covering the rise of Hilter and the early years of WWII when Germany was celebrating one incredible victory after another. This 'diary' is not about himself, but his commentary on the events around him and on which he was reporting. As a foreign correspondent of a major U.S. radio company, he reported at the center of the major events happening at the time. Later Shirer would write many books about Nazi Germany, the most famous being The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. But Berlin Diary is before all that, written in the moment and full of the uncertainty and tension that comes with not knowing how things will turn out and not knowing exactly what is happening (each side, Axis and Allies, are putting their spin on their news and official reports).

This inside-American view of the rise of Hitler and Germany would be fascinating on its own sake. But what was really gripping about this book is that is was published in April 1941 -- at the height of German power. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Holland, Belgium, France have all fallen to Germany. Britain is being bombed and it is not at all clear that she can win against the superior German army and air force. Shirer did not know how it would all turn out when he published this shortly after his return from Berlin in December 1940. It is easy when thinking about WWII to think that 'oh, yeah, Germany took over Austria and then invaded Poland..yada..yada' as if it were obvious this would happen and that Germany would be so successful. But from reading Shirer's journal, you are reminded how incredible and NOT clear these events were. Hitler was playing a game of bluff -- threatening war to get countries to just roll over and play dead. As each piece of territory was taken over, the German war machine gained strength until Hitler no longer had to bluff but could just drop the hammer.

Reading this diary, I felt like it was all happening right now. Each evening I was eager to read to find out what had happened that day. My husband and step-son were amused when I would shuffle down-hearted into the kitchen; 'What's wrong?' they would ask. 'Poland has been invaded. They are getting slaughtered.' I would reply in all seriousness. The funny thing is that while reading Shirer's book it did feel real -- well, it is real though it happened 75 years ago. By reading his diary, I experienced in a small way the emotions and shock that Shirer felt watching these incredible events unfold.

Planet Earth: Fresh water * * *

2007-10-26T00:15:00.000-07:00

Planet Earth: Fresh Water (link to DVD at Amazon)
Planet Earth is a famous series of 6 DVDs of nature and animal photography that is renown for its remarkable cinematography and rare footage. Episode 3 is called “Fresh water” and it shows footage of a variety of fresh water systems from around the world. I’m not sure this particular unifying theme really works, but whatever.

We start in at Angel Falls in Venezuela. Then off to Alaska where we watch some underwater footage of grizzly bears foraging on abundant salmon. Zip, off to India to watch superb underwater footage of smooth coated otters hunting fish. They work in packs and share their catch. A 4-meter crocodile comes along and the otters harass it as a pack and chase it away (no joke, it’s cool). Zip, off to the Mara River in east Africa. The wildebeest must cross in one particular place and here the Nile crocodiles wait. These beasts grow up to 5 meters and they show one taking a full grown wildebeest. Zip, off to Malawi Lake in Africa. These lakes are home to a huge diversity of cichlids. They show some night time footage of dolphin fish hunting for cichlids. The best part is the segment on the emergence of the midges. Zip, off to eastern Russian and Lake Baikal, the largest lake in the world. The lake is full of wacky and one-of-a-kind animals, such as the world’s only fresh water seal. But we don’t stay long at Lake Baikal. Zip, we are off to the Amazon River. Here we have a cool clip of fresh water dolphins, bofeo, hunting fish and performing mating ceremonies. Zip, off to Iguezu falls in Brazil and then to the largest wetland in the world. A short clip follows on some of the fish of this region, including piranhas. Short clip of a crocodile taking a pretty bird. Zip off to India and the largest mangrove forest in the world. Here we have some cool footage of crab-eating macaques that swim and forage under water. Zip, of to the Hudson River delta and some footage of huge snow geese flocks.

Overall, this episode has a few rare clips of rare animals and some cool waterfall shots. The cinematography is ok, but the format of a multi-location theme, in this case ‘fresh water’, leads to disjointed clips and the lack of a unifying story. This one is probably hard for kids to follow; it is very disjointed. You might want to have a globe handy and plan to pause to show where the footage is taken. Or maybe just use it if your kids are doing a report on one of the regions and would like to see some footage of the animals there.

Planet Earth: Pole to Pole
Planet Earth: Mountains

Rented from Netflix

Planet Earth: Mountains * * * *

2007-10-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

Planet Earth: Mountains (link to DVD at Amazon)
Planet Earth is a famous series of 6 DVDs of nature and animal photography that is renown for its remarkable cinematography and rare footage. Episode 2 is called “Mountains” and it shows footage of animals from a variety of mountain ranges around the world.

We start in Ethiopia where we get see a day in the life of high elevation Ethiopian monkeys. Then off to the Andes where we see some nice night footage of pumas hunting guanacos. This is quite unusual; I’ve never seen this kind of night footage of pumas before. Then we are off to the Canadian Rockies with their striking mountain geology. We see a mama grizzly bear emerge from her den with two cubs. Later we see bears going after moths that hide under the high elevation boulders – a curious foraging behavior. Then in a very abrupt bit of editing, we move to the Alps and their glaciers. Then bam, off to the Karakorum mountains of Pakistan which have the largest glaciers on earth. In this region of earth also lie the largest mountains on earth. We get to see a few Himalayan animals. There is some rare and exciting footage of a snow leopard mother during a chase on the cliffs. We also see Himalayan wolves. Next we are off to the Chinese mountains (not sure which). We get a short clip of pandas which is later followed by cool footage of a mother panda raising her cub. These shots are followed by very short clips of some monkeys and the red panda. We get brief glimpses of some interesting birds and a musk deer with its fangs. We then get a long segment on the migration of Demoiselle cranes over the Himalayas to India. This is quite unusual since it shows how a pair of Golden eagles hunts down a young crane and we see how the birds struggle to cross over Mt. Everest.

Following the main episode, there is the diary about the photographers. These give you an idea of just how hard some of this footage was to get. The diary on this segment shows the photographer who captured the snow leopard on film. This fellow sat for 7 weeks and saw nothing. Finally they moved to a new location in steeper terrain with terrorists and lots of flying rocks.

Overall, this episode again has some very rare footage of rare animals. The cinematography is great, but the format of a multi-location theme, in this case ‘mountains’, leads to disjointed clips and the lack of any unifying story. Nonetheless, it is a must see if you like footage of wild animals as some of this is ‘first ever’ footage.

Planet Earth: Fresh Water
Planet Earth: Mountains

Planet Earth: Pole to Pole * * *

2007-10-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

Planet Earth: Pole to Pole (link to DVD at Amazon)
Planet Earth is a famous series of nature and animal photography that is renown for its remarkable cinematography and rare footage. . DVD #1 is called “Pole to Pole” and does just that – goes north pole to south pole with some great cinematography. To appreciate this movie, you might want to watch the DVD extras so you know how hard and rare some of the footage is – like that of the Amur leopard, birds of paradise and African wild dogs.

This episode begins in the Antarctic with the, now much photographed, emperor penguin males and then switches somewhat incongruously to the Arctic. Here we see a mother polar bear emerging from a den on a steep slope. The scenes of the little cubs trying to traverse the steep snow is impressive and humorous. Then we move a bit south to the Arctic tundra and see the migration of the immense arctic caribou herds – the herds number 3 million strong. These animals make the longest land migration of any animal, and they are followed by packs of arctic wolves who hunt the newborn calves. Then we travel 500 miles south to the boreal forest that circles the globe and where 30% of the worlds forests are located. Then a little further south to the temperate forests of the Russian Far East where we see footage of the Amur leopard, the most endangered of the big cats. Only 40 of these cats are left. Then a bit further south to Japan, where we watch the cherry trees bloom is fast motion. Spring passes in the north, summer is skipped over, and we jump into fall. We see briefly the huge flocks of Baikal duck as they prepare to migrate south.

We head then to the equator and see some never before recorded footage of a male bird of paradise displaying for a female. It is very cute. So it is kind of shocking that we next move to South Africa and watch huge great white sharks lunching on seals. Then we head over to the Kalahari desert to watch herds of elephants as they migrate to find water during the dry season. We watch as the first rains comes to the Okavango delta which is formed from rains 1400 km away. This is a regular Noah’s art of animals – birds, ungulates, fish, wild dogs and hyenas. There is some especially unusual photography elephants swimming underwater.

Then we end back in Antarctica with the emperor penguins. Unfortunately it’s hard not to tune out at this part. After seeing March of the Penguins, I’ve seen enough footage of emperor penguins to last a lifetime.

Overall, I found episode 1, Pole to Pole, beautiful but not jaw-dropping. It was not like Deep Blue for example. Also the film has no “plot” at all since it is a sequence of cool shots taken from one latitude after another.

Planet Earth: Fresh Water
Planet Earth: Mountains

Rented from Netflix

Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others, 2006)* * * *

2007-10-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

The Lives of Others (link to DVD on Amazon)
Of all the communist states, East Germany had the most elaborate and insidious secret service. It is said (by wikipedia) that 1 in every 50 East German citizens was collaborating with the Stasi (the East German secret police). It was a world in which people had to be afraid of everyone -- even their friends, family and children. The most innocuous comment or joke could land you in trouble -- not necessarily prison, no in this world the hammer was more subtle. A black mark on your folder affected your ability to work in a non-menial job, to get a decent apartment, to get your children into school.

In 1985, I was studying in West Berlin and I spent my free weekends in East Berlin. If you were never in the eastern bloc during this period, it is perhaps hard to imagine what it was like. Grey oppression. That was the overwhelming feeling and look of the place. One night, I stayed past the curfew for foreigners and rode the subway through the night and into the next morning. I watched the other riders, who stared fixedly at the floor. They could tell that I was a foreigner. Then around 2am, the subway thinned out and it was just me and one other man. He looked like he was maybe a writer or a university professor. He came over and sat next to me. He clearly wanted to talk but was very nervous. Of all my many trips to East Germany, this was the only time someone had the nerve to say anything to me. He leaned close and asked where I was from. I told him I was an American studying in West Berlin. He asked to look at my passport. I handed it to him and watched as he fingered the stamps showing everywhere I had traveled. I knew he was forbidden to travel and I felt self-conscious. He looked to be in his 50s so he would have been in his early twenties when the Berlin Wall was built. Did he have friends or family from whom he was separated in West Berlin? Probably. He glanced again over his shoulder, leaned forward and whispered in my ear, "Don't believe what they tell you about East Germany. We are not free and this isn't a Socialist utopia." I had no idea what to say to this completely unexpected remark. The moment was like a scene out of some art movie -- the florescent lights of the subway flickering, the sound of the subway rushing through the underground, and a gray-coated German intellectual trying to educate a young naive American student. Thing was that my first visit to East Berlin had banished any question about the eastern bloc being a Socialist utopia from my young, liberal mind. This was a world where posters proclaimed things like “To do everything for the welfare of the people – that is the meaning of Socialism!”, next to these really depressing looking factories and next to shops that held nothing of value. It was a world where I was reminded forcibly of the cliche "A lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth". I waited for him to say more. Was he serious? But just whispering this heresy seemed to have terrified him. He handed back my passport and got off the subway.

This world of fear is the one in which Lives of Others is set. Lives of Others begins, appropriately, in 1984. The premise is simple: surveillance of possible dissidents or defectors. Our protagonist, Captain Gerd Wiesler, is an expert on surveillance, interrogation, and reading the body language of others. From a series of scenes exemplifying his proficiency in each area, it becomes clear that with a life devoid of vibrancy, Wiesler lives vicariously through his subjects. We meet Wielser in a university classroom. Approached by an old classmate, Lt. Colonel, Wiesler is assigned to monitor the playwright Georg Dreyman. Once again, the next several steps are straight forward. The Stasi execute a sting operation in which Dreyman's apartment is given the complete works: microphones in the light switches and electrical sockets. Setting up a roost in the attic of the apartment complex, Wiesler and his assistant (Udo) monitor the activity below, typing by the light of a solitary, metal lamp. With lighting from the below and to the side, Wieslers face is cast into long shadows of what is, perhaps, obsession. In the interest of not giving too much away (as the plot is rather unremarkable), suffice it to say that as Wiesler roosts in the attic, the drama unfolds below. The differece between love and sex are at the heart of this drama. Dreyman is in love with the actress Christa-Maria, but a high ranking minister, Hempf, lusts after her as well. Using what can only be described as oozing charm and his political position, he forces her to engage in demeaning and compromising positions. Thus, Christa-Maria is suspended between her allegiance to Dreyman and herself and the malignant interests of the minister. All the while, Wiesler sits and listens as tensions come to a head, waffling in his sympathies for one party or the other, like a vapid viewer of some tv soap-opera. His sympathies take him so far as to physically reach out to Christa-Maria. The remainder of the film plays out this initial setup. The big question is, will Wiesler be caught--by his superiors or Dreyman. With love, sex, betrayal, and compassion what more could any lover of psychological spy thrillers want? Certainly, this was one of the most engrossing films that I watched in 2007 and is further validated having won the 2007 Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

Written jointly by EEH and Kaja
Rented on Netflix.

Svjedoci (Witnesses, 2004)* * *

2007-10-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

Set in a Croatian village during the Balkans war. Three soldiers come in the dead of night, open the door to a house and mow down a civilian with their machine guns. They retreat to a nearby home with a recent war widow -- her husband is laying in the coffin in the living room. The men are nervous, all conversations are conducted in whispers. The woman hovers like a witch. What is her relationship to the young soldiers? Did she order the killing? Or are have they taken her hostage? Thus begins Svejdoci (Witnesses) a murder mystery set in a small Croatian village during the the Balkan war.

The mystery is unraveled by retelling the same critical hours from the perspective of different characters at the center of the mystery. Color is slowly added to the picture and we begin to understand each character better. It is an interesting technique. One by one, each character become 3-dimensional and eventually when the last story is told, the pieces of the mystery fall together

I thought the movie was interesting and I like the unusual cinematography and the greenish light in most of the shots. I was sucked in by the stories and enjoyed trying to solve the mystery. Kaja found the movie a bore.

Watched via "Instant viewing" on Netflix. Svejdoci on Netflix. The nice thing about instant viewing on Netflix is that you can try out movies. So if you are curious you can watch the first 15 minutes of Svejdoci and see if you are like me, and get intrigued, or like Kaja, and get bored.

The Italian (2005)* * *

2007-10-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

The Italian (link to DVD at Amazon)
The name notwithstanding, this is a Russian film about the journey of a young boy in an decrepit orphanage to find his birth mother who abandoned him as a baby. That's it. The name of the movie comes from his nickname -- which he gets because he is about to be adopted by a couple from Italy.

This movie is great if you like rainy depressing movies about cute kids in rags. The movie is deliciously Russian -- nobody can do hopelessness and misery like the Russians. It looks rainy and cold. Grey, grey everywhere. Life is unimaginably hard, and the orphanage is the kind of place that will make any parent cringe. Early on a woman comes to look for the son (another kid, not the protagonist) she abandoned and finding that he has been adopted, she hurls herself under a train. How Russian is that? But this is not a bad movie. The acting is good -- the little kid who is the main character is great, the cinematography is good -- especially if you like blue-lit rainy eastern European rundown village-scapes, and the plot moves well and never drags. I liked the movie and would recommend it if you are in the mood for a Russian version of "My Life As A Dog". The movie is not depressing; this isn't a movie about a kid getting emotionally traumatized, rather it is a movie about a kid overcoming hardship and the bond between a child and their birth parents.

However I should also say that I watched this with two friends and I was the only one who sat through the whole movie.
Here is an entertaining review: Italian review

Vers le Sud (Heading South, 2005) * * *

2007-10-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

Heading South (link to DVD at Amazon)
Heading South is a French and Canadian co-production movie about middle age women (1 ex-pat Brit living in Boston, 1 divorced housewife from Atlanta, and 1 Canadian) who go to Haiti to live at a 'resort' at the beach and hook up with young, as in 15 to 19-yr old, young men who work as gigolos. The press for the movie features pictures of the women in bathing suits locked in an embrace with jet-black, nude men. Well, they are not really nude, they have speedos on. Anyhow you get the idea. So this movie would seem to be a lust-fest for middle-age woman to fulfill taboo fantasies involving black men. Ok, just for the record, I want you to know that I had read reviews of this movie and I knew that this is not what the movie is about. Even though I did watch this at a hotel while on a business trip, I want to make clear that I would never watch vacuous lust-films targeted at middle-age women, ever, really. Of course, when I tell you what this movie IS about, you will probably wonder why on earth I would watch it. Well, all I can say is that I didn't think it would be quite as preachy as the reviews implied it would be. But then given the history of Haiti and the role of the U.S. in Haiti's history, I should have known the moment I saw that this movie was a French production.

So what is this movie really about. It is about how North America -- especially the United States -- degrades and pollutes South America. Usually movies like this focus on the United States government. This movie is more personal. It is about how the people of North America degrade the people of South America. Here they degrade not by intent, but because they think the world revolves around them, because they are blind and uninterested in the poverty around them and because they don't see the people as real but rather convenient caricatures who love to do their bidding. Ug, where have I heard this all before -- oh yeah the 1970s. Yawn.

The movie is set in the early 1970s during the brutal and corrupt dictatorship of 'Baby Doc' (his father was the previous dictator and was a doctor). Haiti was originally a slave colony of the French. In the late 1790s, Haitian slaves mounted a slave rebellion and in 1804 Haiti declared its independence. Haiti was the first colony in the Americas to declare its independence and the only case of a successful slave rebellion. In 1915, the U.S. invaded Haiti. In 1934, the U.S. left and left the Haitian Army in control. After lots of turmoil, Dr. Duvalier becomes president and later dictator. He is quite ruthless and his paramilitary is infamous. When he dies in 1971, he leaves his son 'Baby Doc' in power.

This is part of the message of this film: these women who come down to Haiti do not know or care about world outside their hotel grounds, and they see no connection between their personal egoistic attitudes and foreign policies of the north. (I'm not sure I see such a connection either, but clearly the movie makers do). The women care that Haiti is cheap and there are nice young men who will pamper them and have sex with them. The women are sympathetic -- they are not portrayed as monsters or caricatures -- yet if you think about it, they are monstrous. They fall in love with these men and are desperate about the young mens' well-being, but they really don't care about Haiti or about these men as Haitians. "Come away with me. Get away from all this. I can get you a passport," they beg to their lovers. They don't understand why the men have no interest in leaving and becoming their lap dog. Ug.

So the movie is shrill in its message, but on the positive side, the boys are pretty and scantily clad.

Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1998) * * *

2007-07-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

Little Dieter Needs to Fly (link to DVD on Amazon)

This is a documentary about Dieter Dengler, who was born in Germany shortly after WWII started who grew up to be a bomber pilot in Vietnam. As a young boy, he watched the Allied airplanes bombing his village and flying in low to the ground to strafe the houses. Watching the planes inspired in him a strong and life-long desire to become a pilot. At 18 he managed to emigrate to the U.S. and immediately joined the Air Force, where he peeled potatoes for 2 years but never got close to an airplane. He realized that he needed to go to college to become a military pilot, and so he went to California, lived on the beach in his VW van with his surf board, went to college, and joined the Navy R.O.T.C. He finally got his wings shortly after the Vietnam war started, and he was sent to war to fly a bomber plane. After a few months, he was shot down over Laos. He spent 6 harrowing months as a prisoner. First he was marched across Laos to a prison camp in Vietnam and was tortured repeatedly. Then in the prison camp, he met 2 other American and 4 Thai pilots. The camp was pure hell and after a few months the men staged a break-out. Of the 7 men that escaped, he was the only one that miraculously was rescued—after many days struggling barefoot through the jungle towards

Thailand

When the film was made, Dieter Dengler was in his early 60s. He narrates the film and is an engaging and charismatic story-teller of his incredible life. He tells the story of his imprisonment without emotion or self-pity. He recounts how they would torture him with a tone of voice that suggests admiration for the inventiveness of his tormentors. He voice carries no ill-will towards them. Part of the film is reenactment. With a group of young, heavily-armed, Laotians, he reenacts how the drove him through the jungle. He lets himself be hand-cuffed or tied to the ground to show how they restrained him. At the camp, he shows how they would shackle their legs to the ground, and describes the torture. All in the same voice of ‘wow, isn’t this an incredible story’. His descriptions of his mental state after his rescue tell better the true horror of the experience. For many years, he would be unable to sleep and could only sleep in the cockpit of his airplane. When he built his house in California, he made a bunker for food and stored 6 months of staples there. I sleep better knowing I will never be hungry again, he said.

My overall impression of the film was that this was an interesting and entertaining documentary of a remarkable but in some ways contradictory life. It was amazing to me that someone could come through this kind of experience mentally unscathed. That is if you don’t count his various obsessions, like open and closing doors multiple times and that he was reminded of the experience every day even 40 years after the experience. It was also strange that he grew up seeing the destruction and horror brought by Allied bombs, and yet he grew up to be a bomber himself. He says early on that when he was bombing, he saw the landscape as a map and did not connect the explosions on the ground to real suffering. The images from the sky he could not quite imagine from the ground. It was only after he was a prisoner and was on the ground that he appreciated the horror that the bombs brought. This seemed an odd thing to say given his childhood.

The Endless Steppe (1968)* * * *

2007-07-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

The Endless Steppe (link to book on Amazon)
This is the autobiographical story of the childhood of Ester Hautzig who was born in Vilna, Lithuania in the late-1920s. She was from a rich Jewish family in a city that was one of the Jewish centers of learning and culture at that time. But this is not a story of Jewish ghettos and concentration camps. It is a story of being sent to Siberia. In 1941, Lithuania was in Soviet control. Her family owned a large business—they were bourgeoisie capitalists in the Soviet scheme of things. At that time, such people were being arrested and sent to Siberia. Her father and mother did not know it at the time, but being arrested was the lucky break that saved their lives. The rest their extended family, along with almost all the Jews in Lithuania and Poland, were killed by the Nazis when Germany marched across Poland and Lithunia on the way to Moscow. This book tells the story of travelling across Russia to Siberia in cattle cars and of growing up on the Siberian steppe with her mother and old grandmother. Her father was sent to Siberia with them, but he was soon conscripted for a labor brigade on the Eastern front. Although the book was written when she was an adult, it is told from the perspective of her youthful self. Youth has an odd way of not seeing hardship in quite the same light as adults. In the end in fact, the Siberian steppe becomes the place she thinks of as home. When the war ends, her father writes for them to join him in Poland. She begs her parents to stay in Siberia and make their home there. Her parents naturally think she has lost her mind. Ester and her mother return to Poland and later emigrate to New York.

The book is written for middle-schoolers and so is a quick read. I quite enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone interested in stories from this era. Hauzig is a very good storyteller and this is an entertaining story. She is never self-pitying, not only because it would be unseemly and ungrateful given what happened to the rest of her family, but also because she was a child of 10 and it was her parents who did the worrying and working. They had hardly anything to eat, but they did find food even if it meant scouring the frozen fields for half-rotten potatoes. They were crammed in with other families into tiny rooms, but they did have places to sleep. There are many funny stories in the book. One of my favorites is when they first arrive at the gypsum mines where they are to do forced labor. In the morning after their arrival, the adults are given their jobs. Her father is told that since he is an educated man, he will drive the horses. Her mother, being an educated woman, is told that she will be the supervisor for the women. “And what will we be doing?” asks the mother. “The women will be dynamiting,” replies the mine chief. Her alarmed father begs to take his wife place, but he is told that the rules are that the men dig the gypsum, the women dynamite it, and the old people load it. Those are the rules. Such ridiculous and nonsensical Soviet rules are the source of many of the funny stories in this book.

On the cover leaf, they liken this story to The Diary of Anne Frank. I have not read that for years, but somehow I think that Endless Steppe is not at that level for a variety of reasons—not the least of which is that Hautzig survived and tells her story from memory rather than the moment. Nonetheless, it is an excellent book and gives young teenagers a view of a unique WWII experience.

In Deadly Combat (1964) * * * *

2007-06-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front by Gottlob Herbert Bidermann (link to the book on Amazon)

This is a memoir of a young German soldier who started as a landser—infantry man—manning a heavy machine gun and then became a platoon leader. He began his service in the Crimea in a battle group that defeated the Russians and pushed them out of Sevastapool Castle. They were later moved up to join the army besieging Leningrad. They battled the Russian groups trying to break the siege. Later as the Russians pushed the Germans south, out of Russia, they were surrounded and trapped in what was called the Courland pocket. Against overwhelming odds, they resisted all attempts by the Russians to smash their pocket. They held out till the end of the war, when they were finally ordered to surrender. The author was taken prisoner and was one of the few to survive the gulags.

This memoir is considered one of the best. This memoir gives a good perspective on the skill of the German soldiers and why the Wehrmacht was so effective. Small teams of heavy out-numbered German soldiers were able to maintain their position by being unflinching under fire. In the beginning, the soldiers are affected by seeing death and being killing machines. In one early battle when they are mowing down wave after wave of Russian soldiers, one of the heavy machine gunners becomes overwhelmed by it all and cries out “I can’t keep killing!”. This must have been alarming to his mates who were doing all they could to stay alive. After a year or two though, the soldiers are inured to it and seem simply proud of their skills at repelling these attacks.

My thoughts? It is a good book. If one is interested in German war memoirs, this is one to read. However, I felt kind of traumatized by the end. Killing, killing, killing. Ug. The writer does not glorify this but that is what his life was about at this time.

Ivan's War (2006) * * * * *

2007-05-04T07:19:00.000-07:00

Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945 (link to book at Amazon)
He stands larger than life, a gun grasped firmly in one hand, his strong jaw pointing slightly upward as he fixes his determined gaze somewhere off to the left. Ivan. The WW II Soviet soldier. Any visitor to the Soviet Union has seen him cast in bronze at war memorials or seen him in WWII era placards. To readers of WWII memoirs from German soldiers, he is the faceless infantryman who yells Uhrrah! en mass and launches himself with selfless sacrifice in endless waves against withering German fire (1,2). In war, soldiers are always turned into icons -- carefully polished symbols of patriotism and heroism ... (or evil if you are talking about the enemy). But real soldiers are individuals with reals hopes, desires, fears and heartbreak not bronze statues--even Ivan. In this incredibly well-researched book, Catherine Merridale (3) seeks to find the real Ivans and tell their stories.

The bulk of the book is organized chronologically: from the disastrous Winter War in Finland to the victorious invasion of Germany. The book as a whole however is organized to answer three basic questions: Why did men fight, what did they think of their experience at the time and how did the war change them?

To understand these men (ok, there are few women, but mainly men), Merridale first introduces us to their world. These men and their parents were generations that had experienced violence on an unprecedented scale(5). The civil war of 1918-1921, besides creating chaos and killing many, also created desperate shortages. In its wake were epidemics and a terrible famine. That famine turned out to be minor compared to the famine of 1932-1933 when 7 million died. Then there was the restructuring of society after the civil war: collectivization, totalitarianism, and gulags for the land-owners, business-owners and intelligentsia. But the young soldiers also grew up in a state that sought to remake souls--to remake youth into heroic communists. This last point is very important. Those born from 1921 on, were born into a state that saw as one of its great missions the education of youth and the lifting of people out of poverty. To be a "good Communist" was to devote oneself to the betterment of society, to be upstanding, moral, and clean, and to do heroic deeds. At the same time, the experience and views of the men were anything but uniform. Many men came from regions that did not support Russia--the Western Ukraine and the Balkans for example. Others served in punishment battalions as a way to do penance for their family's capitalist crimes--or for more mundane crimes. The idea of a unified country standing together against the Germans is a myth of the Soviet state(6). One of the strengths of Merridale's book is that she tells the stories and experiences of men from many different walks of life. Many were your idealist Muscovite, others were village boys, some were from Russia and others were not. Their experiences as soldiers were also diverse: she tells the stories of men who fought on the front lines on the ground and in the tanks, of men who ended up behind the lines and worked as partisans, of men who survived the punishment battalions, of Jewish men, of ardent Communists, of non-political men, and of a few women.

Why did men fight? When Merridale first posed this question, my reaction was, "Well, duh, they were conscripted and would be shot if they didn't fight." She argues however that terror-tactics produce a very poor solider--the normal response being to hide in one's foxhole or to be incapable of firing. British, German, and American armies create the will to fight by promoting very strong bonds within small groups--after a few battles and losses, the men fight with passion for their close comrades who, through the crucible of fire, have become closer than family to them. Making them feel they are fighting a good cause is good for morale, but does not create the kind of heroic fighting necessary to win wars. What Merridale notes right off the bat is that the Red Army was not organized this way. The traditional military structure had been replaced with an ideological structure. This was an army where men were supposed to fight for the international proletarian and to die for their fellow soldier, whoever he may be, because of comradely friendliness. If one's takes this propaganda at face value, the men seem like mindless robots. Of course dying for the international proletarian is a fine idea if you are agitating in on a street corner; in the heat of battle, nobody is going to rush the enemy for that! Secondly, Soviet battle groups experienced severe losses in battles. Loss of 80-90% of men in a combat group was very common(4). Thus for both political and death rate reasons, strong bonds between small groups of men were discouraged.(8) So the question remains what motivated these men to rush the lines and pull the trigger? The simple answer is that an army run by political officers and not military officers is a pathetic army. The Red Army up to 1942 had huge desertion and panic rates. In the winter war against Finland, 50% of men were captured, missing or killed. As the Germans rolled over Russia, men fled en masse and refused orders to fire. Even the Germans were surprised by the chaos, notes Merridale. Thus much of the first half of the book is about is was like to be in a losing chaotic army--and how does a man react when he can see with his own eyes how terribly mismanaged the war is and how cheaply lives are treated. The feeling clearly changes in the 2nd half of the book and the 2nd half of the war. The army is reorganized under more traditional military not political leadership. Training and tactics improve. Men develop new resolve. Letters from the 2nd half of the war are characterized by determination, resolve and hatred for Fritz.

"I have to say that the war has changed me a lot. War does not make people tender. On the contrary, it makes them reserved, rather coarse, and very cruel."(7)

Part of the drive to understand the man in the Red Army in 1938-1945, it must be said, is to understand what happened in 1945 in Budapest and worse yet in East Prussia. War makes one cruel and innured to death and brutality, but there are many records of officers being alarmed and startled by what happened(9). War atrocities are nothing new. All wars are have instances where women and girls are gang-raped and then shot or where a large group of civilians are killed and mutilated. What was different about Budapest and East Prussia was the magnitude, extent, and commonness of these types of outrageous brutalities. The solidier that did not participate was the exception not the rule. The reports from civilians all over these regions are chillingly similar: a white hot fury descended upon them that went house to house exacting revenge. This seemed to be a spasm of brutality. Merridale spends a whole chapter, with the lovely title of Despoil the Corpse, to understand what caused men spread across different battle groups and across large geographic regions, to do this. This was not an isolated event in one battle group. She attributes it to the terrible strain of war and loss into which was mixed hateful propaganda, implicit and explicit encouragement from above, and inadequate commitment to discipline from officers. After they soliders passed farther into Germany, their behavior was less horrible. Most women were raped, but not gang-raped to death and rape in front of one's family was less common. Children and old people where not generally killed, and certainly not mutilated. Merridale says that in her interviews with veterans they were exasperated with this focus on rapes of German women. They spent years fighting in horrible conditions--that is what defined their experience. Yes, the brutalities were terrible but they had already become so inured to death and cruelty. The rapes and rampage of 1945 was, from the perspective of the war as a whole, a brief and not particularly memorable part of their experience.

This book is a must read for those interested in WWII--the overwhelming majority of which was fought on the Eastern Front. You won't learn about tactics, about troop movements, or about equipment. After reading this book however, you will see the person behind those nameless Red Army faces. This book also helps us grasp the enormity of sacrifice and suffering. 27 million died in the war of which 8 million were Red Army soldiers, but I think the losses are better summed up by another shocking statistic: 90% of men who turned 18 in 1939 (born in 1921) died as solders in the war.(10)

Footnotes:
1,2. Some example memoirs that I've read recently are In Mortal Combat by Bidermann and Blood Red Snow
3. Merridale, from England, is a Soviet historian. Her previous book, Night of Stone, was about how Soviet people dealt with death in the pre- and post-WWII eras. She focused on the deaths and disappearances of people arrested and sent to Gulags (millions and millions). How does a nation of people deal with death when they are forbidden to grieve?
4. Evgyny Bessorov was a platoon leader in the Soviet Army and wrote the memoir, Tank Rider. In basically every major battle, he lost all but a handful of men in is platoon. Then he would get a hodge-podge of replacements for the next battle.
5. 15 million died in the 2 decades before WWII.
6. Merridale and Bessorov mention many cases where the soldiers were not greeted warmly by the civilian population. Bessorov says they almost starved when they were sent as recruits to dig potatoes since the villagers refused to share food. In some instances, peasants rose in rebellion against the Red Army as in Kursk when the army tried to remove them from the front lines.
7. Written in 1945 by a soldier. pg 381
8. The exception seems to be the tank soliders who formed very tight bonds as they had to work as a well-oiled team. They also had very high death rates. According to Merridale, of 403,272 trained, 310,000 died. Interestingly in Tank Rider, Bessorov repeatedly talks of the tanks drivers being scared and holding back.
9. Both Beevor and Merridale give examples of reports from officers and political officers.
10. p 338

Starukhi (Old Women, 2003) * * *

2007-03-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

Starukhi (link to DVD at Amazon)
Ah, more obscure Russian films. This is a 2003 award-winning film about a group of old women living in an forgotten village somewhere in an endless sea of forest. They are living in poverty in these run-down wooden houses -- yet they still have their spirit. One of the things that makes this movie unusual is that these old women are not caricatures per se and were played by non-professionals. They are all 3-dimensional characters of various sorts. This is so different from the usual portrayal of old women in film, where they are so often flat characters. Apparently, from the reviews posted by Russians, this is a fairly unusual modern Russian film. Honest yet uplifting (sort of) story about people who's stories are not usually told. This film shows the negative side of the changes since the break-up and privatization of the Soviet Union. The poverty of these women is a direct result of this as they are pensioners and pensioners have not faired well. Corruption, government mismanagement, inflation, etc. Thus, the movie highlights others who have been hurt by the changes since 1991 also.

The movie does not exactly have a plot. It is mainly a character study of an isolated village and its old women. Nonetheless, there is a major event in the movie and that is the arrival of an Uzbek refugee family into the village. Presumably they are escaping violence from the Uzbek government as violent crackdowns by the government have led to various waves of refugees in recent years. They are assigned to one of the run-down houses. Here again these are honest and human characters. The wife is expecting and is half-depressed to be stuck in a run-down shack in the middle of nowhere. The husband is trying to make the best of it -- he is a good soul caught in a hard situation. The family is rounded out by the man's father and two pre-teen daughters.

Initially most of the old women are verbally hostile to the newcomers -- spewing the typical xenophobisms amongst themselves. But others are more interested to just have someone new to talk with and play with (there is a, ahem, randy old woman who has her eye on the grandfather). In the end, the women come to see that the refugees are really in the same lot at they are. The refugees are not the enemy. They band together to make the best of life. A celebration of a newborn child and strong moonshine -- these are things to enjoy in life rather than grieving the past.

There was also a small reference to WWII in this film that was quite interesting to me. One of the old women corners the Uzbeks and subjects them to one of the long ballads that she makes up. This one is about searching for her father's burial spot. This woman was born in the 20s, and her father fought and died in WWII. That's quite typical since all men were called up and the death rate was about 25%. What's less well known outside of Russia, and from what I've read rarely spoken about within, are the harsh policies with which veterans and their families faced after the war. One of these policies was that soldiers that were MIA (missing in action) were considered deserters and their families would be punished. For example, their children would not be allowed into high school or university or into good jobs. Some 8-9 million Russian soldiers were killed and many were blown to pieces, dumped in mass graves, or otherwise lost in the chaos. So this affected many families. In the movie, this woman's ballad is about tracking down her father's burial spot, how they finally succeed, and how all was then ok with the family. If you didn't know otherwise, you might think this was all about emotional closure, but no, it was about survival in a totalitarian system.

In summary, I would recommend this to someone looking for something original and different. Note in the DVD I got only the Russian was subtitled and not the Uzbek. Also the menu was in Russian so figuring out how to turn on the English subtitles was a puzzle. You need to guess what link takes you to subtitles and then to look for this word английский (English).

Tank Rider * * *

2007-02-26T13:33:00.000-08:00

Tank Rider is a war memoir from a man, Evgyny Bessorov, who served in the Russian infantry during WWII. He was the lowest level of officer, a platoon leader. It was his job to get the soldiers up and rushing at the Germans during the endless battles. He rushed into battle for 2 years carrying usually only a shovel, which he used for its intended purpose (digging in) and to 'tap' the butts of soldiers who had been laying on the ground for too long. He said of his job, no one wants to die, that includes soldiers, it was my job to get them up and running at the enemy. Sometimes he had to physically manhandle his soldiers out of their foxholes; only once did he have to threaten execution. He led his men through 4 or 5 major battles. During each he lost about 80% of his platoon. His survival was pure luck combined with caution.

He starts his front-line service at the battle of Kursk.
From there, it is a relentless 2 year push towards the German border and then into Berlin. He is part of the troops the encircle Berlin from the east. Here he is injured and then rejoins his battalion when they are outside Prague. And then 'Woina kaputt'...the war is finished.

As he states in the introduction, this is a book about what he saw and what he did. He doesn't analyze the war or his experience. He doesn't dwell on the horrible things he saw, but he says many times that it was very hard, he was scared and no one wanted to die. He does not mention anything about the Russians treatment of German POWs or about raping and pillaging when the Russians came into Germany. However, he was a frontline soldier and everything I've read has said that the frontline soldiers were too tired to do anything and were on the move forward constantly. The raping and pillaging and shooting of POWs happened behind the lines. Thus I would think that he is not 'leaving out details'. He is upfront about his failings: the times when he was too scared to move or when he made an error that got men killed. He is not philosophic about his job which was to lead men to their deaths. His job was to lead groups of men forward to take objectives at any cost. It was his job, and that was that.

Although, as I mentioned, he doesn't talk about Russian bad behavior, many passages are telling. He asserts that he did not allow his soldiers to loot. Loot however was defined as killing pigs and destroying property. Emptying out the larder and the chicken coop was not looting. He talks a lot about how well they ate in Germany and how well stocked the German pantries were. At one point when they catch a bunch of soldiers, the political officer comes racing forward screaming, 'Don't Shoot Them!!'. He is affronted, noting that the officer acted like he had been shooting prisoners the whole war. However, that the political officer was afraid that the prisoners would be shoot is telling. In other places he talks about 'taking the middle way'. They would come into a village in Western Ukraine, and the people didn't want to feed the soldiers. Bessorov said that he would pull out his gun and threaten that if food wasn't on the table in a hour, he would shoot them. This was the 'middle way'. We did not loot, but the soldiers got fed.

WWII was a war that had a huge effect on his generation. 40% of the boys in his high school class were killed in the war. Interestingly, in start contrast to the USSR propaganda about the country rallying together to support the troops, he gives many stories of the rural people not supporting the soldiers. In training, they practically starve because they are sent to the countryside to learn to dig holes and the villagers refuse to feed them. In the eastern Ukraine, when they push the Germans out, the villagers are very welcoming and always make food for the soldiers, but in the western Ukraine, people are downright hostile.

Overall this is an interesting book for those interested in the eastern front of WWII. This is one of the few memoirs from the Russian side. Until the fall of the USSR, such memoirs were forbidden since they might conflict with the official stories.

Blood Red Snow * * * *

2007-02-13T07:41:00.000-08:00

Blood Red Snow is memoir of a German soldier who fought as a heavy machine gunner in Russia, Ukraine and Romania. He also did a short stint in Italy, chasing partisans. This story is very different than A Stranger To Myself. No endless philosophizing or ruminations on the glint of snowflakes against the sun. Instead this is a straight-forward story of what happened to him as an elite front-line soldier.

His first battle is on the outskirts of Stalingrad. He starts as a naive and idealistic young soldier, but that doesn't last long. His first job is a trip into Stalingrad to deliver food at night. This is just before the encirclement, and the battles are done from rubble pile to rubble pile. All he can think about is getting away from the horror. Shortly after the fighting begins and his unit is one of the sacrificial units that are maintaining a fight to the death position. Almost everyone in his unit is killed, and then when all is hopeless the last 10 make a dash to safety through heavy gunfire. They are among those that race across the River Don on foot and are only saved because the ice is too thin for the Russian tanks. It is a brutal fighting retreat. He get injured, gets sent to the rear, and survives.

After a stint in Italy, where not much of interest happens except some looting, he is sent back to Russia. He is now in an elite unit that is steadily retreating from the Russian offensive east into Romania. By this point, he is very weary after so many months of frontline fighting. In the end, he ends up in Poland and is in East Prussia when the Russian arrive. He is once again injured at a lucky time and manages to survive by being in a hospital at the right time.

One interesting section concerns a home-leave he gets in the summer of 1944. He writes that things were very tense at home. Many refugees. People being sent to concentration camps. He does not mention Jews, but rather dissenters and those that refuse to fight. He is not critical of them nor is he sympathetic. Everyone has a duty to do and they refuse to do theirs. In retrospect, we know that Germany mounted an unprovoked attack on Russia in the summer of 1941. But this is not what Germans were told at the time. They were told that Russia was massing troops on the border and this was a defensive attack to protect Germany and Europe from the war-mongering Bolsheviks. I'm sure that this is what everyone believed.

In this memoir, the viewpoint is unconflicted. The Russians are the enemy and they are brutes. He writes about how as his unit retreats and the Russians move forward, the Russians kill villagers in the eastern Ukraine who helped the Germans -- even if they were forced to do so. This is also mentioned in the book, Stalingrad. As they retreat into Romania, he talks about the rampant raping by the Russian soldiers. This is also well documented. He also writes about the treatment of German POWs and that they are killed or worse. Again this well-documented. So to him when he was a soldier, it was clear-cut. He does not mention German war-crimes, but then it sounds like he was not in areas where these were happening in the extreme. He did not fight in the Ukraine in winter 1941 where he would have seen 100,000s of Russian POWs interned with no food nor does he see the round-up of Jews in those areas nor the winter looting and rampant killing of civilians. He does not experience the scotched-earth retreat from Opel. Many other soldiers did experience this and the documentary Mein Kampf has footage taken by these men.

Overall I found this to be an unrealistically rosy picture of German soldiers in Russia. Here there is no mention of the poor treatment of Russian POWs. There is mention of wounded Russians being shot, but this is attributed to sadism. Looting is punishable and soldiers have to be sneaky about it. I don't necessarily doubt that this is a true account of this soldier's experience, and people I've talked to in Czechoslovakia during the war have commented that the German soldiers were well-behaved. Nonetheless, I was struck by the lack of any reference to German treatment of Russian POWs, the massive institutionalized looting, and mass starvation of civilians (like in Leningrad). I cannot believe he was unaware even if he did not personally see this. This especially struck me at the end, where he makes a comment about wanting to be an POW of the Americans since at least they treat POWs according to the Geneva Conventions. I was pretty much flabbergasted by this comment, given what happened to so many Russian POWs. Granted from what I've read, those that were shipped to Germany for slave labor were treated decently, but millions were starved or gassed.

Another part of the book that I read with skepticism was the part where he said he was among the first German troops to come into the village of Nemmersdorf after the Russians briefly took it. Nemmersdorf is the site of the most famous Russian war atrocities in East Prussia. This is the first German town that the Russian troops reached. The Russian troops were accused of killing all civilians, raping the women and girls to death, and then mutilating the bodies. Goebbels had a famous propaganda film made of it. There are questions however about whether it was 'enhanced' for propaganda purposes by SS troops in the area. That the Russians killed the civilians and mass-raped the women and girls meshes with well-documented reports of many, many similar events from East Prussia (discussed in Fall of Berlin). But the Nemmersdorf massacre was also characterized by mutilation and crucifying people on barn doors -- I have never read of anything like that in other reports. In any case, the author claims to have been among those troops that first arrived after the Russians and claims to have seen the mutilated bodies. I found it surprising that of all places, he just so happened to be in Nemmersdorf on Oct 21, 1944.

In the end, I'm not sure what to make of this memoir -- except that it gives me a new insight into more of the evil of war.

Chronology
October-November 1942 On the Don River outside Stalingrad. Makes a hasty retreat and get injured. Thus survives.
October-November 1943 On the Dneiper in Eastern Ukraine some 500km south of Kursk. Russians are in the process of their steady push of the Germans out of Russia. His unit is one of the delaying units set up to give the retreating soldiers more time.
December 1943 Major assault by the Russians on the line of the Dneiper River.
January 1944 Retreat from the Dneiper River near Dneproperovsk.
March 1944 Miserable retreat to just north of the Black Sea. From where they are transferred to Romania.
April 1944 Part of a big successful fight where the Germans defeat the Russians near Lasi (Jassy) on the border between Romania and Moldava. Russian will have it back by July.
June 1944 Heavy fighting near Jassy as Russians are intent on retaking Jassy.
July 1944 Transferred to Poland; hard fighting; losing; injured and off the hospital.
October 1944 Fighting in Poland. Says he is in the troops that first come into Nemmersdorf (the site of a famous Red Army massacre of civilians), but that seems hard to believe.
January-March 1945 In Denmark as a trainer for new recruits.
March 1945 Volunteers for the front with his ragtag group of new recruits. Sent to Stettin on the Oder as the Russians are pushing their way to Berlin. Is soon injured, and sent back to a hospital.
End of April 1945 Is in a hospital that is taken by the Americans, but the Americans turn the German POWs over to Russia. He reinfects his wound to get back to the sick ward, and survives this. Spends time in American camp then released.

A Stranger to Myself * * *

2007-02-02T07:56:00.000-08:00

A Stranger to Myself is a book made from the diaries of a young writer/poet/philosopher who died in Russia on his 5th tour on the Eastern Front. This is a memoir about what it was to experience the Eastern Front as a little human not an uber-German. If you've seen any books on the Eastern Front, you've seen the pictures of the winter of '41. The German soldiers in summer uniforms are laying in endless frozen heaps. The walking have their hands and feet wrapped due to frostbite. It is a disaster. Reese entered the war during that winter and lived through the experience in those pictures. He also was on the front near Kursk during the disasterous winter of '43 when Germans were again pushed back. 100'000s German soldiers were killed or froze to death during that winter. He returns to the front in winter '44 as the Germans are getting pushed out of Russia after the failure of Operation Citidel. So this is a memoir of the winter defeats. He misses completely the heady summer of '41 when the Germans pushed to Moscow and the summer of '42 when they pushed to Stalingrad.

A Stranger to Myself is unlike any war diary that you would have read before. This is Wagner meets WWII. It is an at times lyrical and, in the first half, overwrought exploration of his experience of the war. We are transplanted to the Russian steppe. The writer paints a vivid and poetic pictures of the the landscape and how it changes from winter to summer. As I read it, I could almost smell the crisp morning air and see the red sunrises, and then later the endless brown and mud that covers everything. In the beginning of the book, Reese struggles with yet embraces the role of the soldier. He repeatedly talks of the mask of the soldier and playing a role. He tries to understand his existence. Life is suffering. It is what must be. Suffering defines existence. In the beginning he sees himself as part of a larger thing. The master race scouring the countryside. Yet he does not see himself as superior; he is simply part of this larger thing that is happening. He feels no emnity to the people or his enemies. Yet he participates. His life is not defined by Free Will. He gives in to the larger forces and plays his role. He embraces herioc nihilism. After 2 years of war, he view will change however....

Reese is unsparing in his examination of himself. And if all soldiers were like him, the Wehrmacht surely wouldn't have gotten very far. He kvetches, he gets lost, he has heart palpations, somehow he repeatedly manages to stay behind and hold the fort while his comrades go off to fight, etc, etc. During the brutal winter of '43, he descends into pure desperation and finally stands up in his trench until he is shot. Salvation, a home-pass. In the winter of '44, however, he is a seasoned frontline veteran and participates in endless battles -- although he and the others are fighting just to save themselves nothing more. He is unsparing in his admission of his participation in abuses of civilians; he does not agonize over it nor does he feel good about it. In the winter of '41, he describes how the soldiers were constantly hungry and suffering. They looted from the civilians viciously and if the people complained, they were shot. Later in the book, during the retreat from Orel, he writes of the endless destruction behind the frontlines. The Germans instituted a scorched earth policy on their retreat. He is sad of the war is consuming noncombatants and recognizes that he is both perpetrator and pawn of the war-monster.

After 2 years of war, Reese has changed. He explores his mental scars that simply do not heal. His writing has changed. Before it was overwrought and explored endlessly this idea of heroic nihilsm. Now his writing is terse as he tries to comes to grip with who he is, what his life is, and the images in his head. He decides his life can only go forward after going through the fire. He volunteers for the frontlines. In the end, after going through the crucible, he is ready to live. The beauty of nature consumes him. But he accepts that death is his fate and is not sad. He did about 3-4 months after he finished the book during a furlough at home. He was killed in June 1944 during the retreat from Russia.

Chronology
August 1941 Reese is stationed in Poland and participates in fights to push the Russians east
Sept 28, 1941 Reese arrives in Kiev the day after the greatest encirclement of the war; 650,000 Russians
October 1941 He is near Kursk. Winter arrives they begin to freeze and starve;
Dec 1941 - Jan 1942 Starving and freezing and trench warfare near Kursk; Reese is injured and returns home. This was the eastern end of the big Russian counter-offensive.
July 1942 Reese joins the summer offensive in the push towards Stalingrad. They start marching near Kharkov. But he collapses in the march and is sent back to Germany.
October-Dec 1942 Reese is sent to Rshev NW of Moscow. In Dec/Jan a big Russian counter offensive at Rshev pushes the Germans back 200km.
Feb 1943 In the midst of this counter offensive, Reese stands up in his trench to get shot. He does.
July 1943 Reese is sent to about 200mi SW of Moscow near Smolensk on the Vopez River. Fighting.
End of July 1943 Moved to Mileyevo NE of Bryansk (100km W of Orel). Fighting.
August or so 1943 Collapse of the Citidel offensive. Enormous retreat by the German Army back to the Dneiper River in the west. All villages destroyed on retreat. Reese describes this.
To Dec 1943 North of Gomel (200km W of Byransk). Reese is part of the fighting to hold the line of the Dneiper River against a huge Russian counter-offensive.
Spring 1943 Home leave
June 1943 Reese is killed in the Vitebsk region 400km W of Moscow during the start of the Russian counter-offensive that drove the Germans out of Russian

A Woman in Berlin (1954)* * * * *

2007-02-01T08:16:00.000-08:00

A Woman in Berlin (link to book at Amazon)
A Woman in Berlin is the diary of Marta Hillers who was living in Berlin when it fell to the Russian Army. The diary starts as she is sitting in a bomb shelter to avoid the nighttime bombing raids by the Americans. During the day, they can hear the Russians over the horizon. It is 3 more days before the Russians will make it to their part of town. This diary records what she saw in her small part of Berlin during the two months starting just before Berlin fell. Marta Hillers (who published this anonymously but it is well-known who is the author) was a 34-year old journalist. An orphan from WWI, she lived as a free-spirit. A modern woman. A traveler. She had studied in Paris and had visited Russian, back in her youthful days as a coffee-house red-sympathizer before she became disillusioned after visiting Russia. She had a working command of Russian, which would change her experience during the Russian occupation (it's unclear if it was a positive or negative).

I had approached this book with trepidation. I knew that during the fall of Berlin, there was an orgy of mass rape and that estimates are that 50% of all women were raped. As I opened the book, I braced myself for horror. The book wasn't anything like that. Yes rape is a big part of this book; the author herself loses track of the number of booted soldiers that force their way into her bed. But unlike in Prussia, most women were not getting raped AND beaten. It was happening to all women, and the Berlin women quickly developed a gallows humor about it. Marta relates how every visit to friends quickly found the women huddled together discussing 'So, how many...'. Just like women huddle together and tell birthing stories. When one relates a particularly unpleasant encounter, the rest wince and can commiserate with their own unpleasant encounter.

After one particularly uncouth rapist, the author decides she's had it and that if she's going to have forced intercourse with Russians 2-3 times a day, at least she is going to have it with only 1 Russian of her own choosing. So she goes out to find an officer. Her plan is a bit vague on how this is going to work, but she figures if she gets an officer boyfriend, he will somehow keep the others at bay. She manages to find one, and thus her apartment (actually not hers but a widow who she is living with) becomes a gathering spot every evening for a group of Russian officers of various levels. Endless late nights of drinking and discussing politics (followed by ... with her officer). She is amazed at the diversity of men -- they come from all over Russia and represent very different backgrounds. At some point, she realized that she has become a willing participant and ponders whether she has become a whore. She provides sex; the Russian visitors provide food. However, the alternative is starvation. So she is practical about it. A number of other women in her building have similar arrangements.

In the second month of the diary, the Russian Army leaves from her part of town. Gone are the Russian visitors. Gone is the food. Back to potatoes and nettles. She joins a number of forced labor call-ups. A day of rubble clearing. A week dismantling a factory and loading it on a train to Russia. I have often wondered how the Germans (esp women) could rebuild Berlin so fast after the war. I had imagined that the women must have been shattered by their experiences. Some were. But this book gives insight into the many women who were not. Who somehow coped and focused on the work to be done and not on self-pity. As one woman comments, "Life goes on..."

A Conspiracy of Decency * * *

2007-01-23T10:02:00.000-08:00

I picked this up from the library while searching for "A Woman in Berlin" or other searing personal narratives from fall of Germany in WWII. I thought I'd read an uplifting story about WWII for a change. This one tells the story of the rescue of 90% of Denmark's Jews (some 8,000 people) in 1943. It is an amazing story of one act of conscience after another.

It starts with a German adviser (Herr Duckawitz) who is working for the German General Best, who is head of the German occupying forces in Denmark (Denmark was occupied in 1940). He learns that General Best has asked Himmler that he (Best) be allowed to deport the Danish Jews. Duckawitz learns of the exact date 2 days before the Jews will be arrested in a night raid throughout Copenhagen. He secretly warns the Jewish leaders, and one rabbi warns the 80 people during a service at the synagogue. Those 80 then race out around the city to warn all Jews (again some 8,000 people). Almost every Jew gets the warning, and they go into hiding. The Danish resistance organizes rescue routes to get everyone to Sweden (a few miles across a body of water). A large fraction of the Danish population helps to hide the Jews. Many regular German officers and soldiers also help, by canceling all patrols the German Coast Guard during the week when the people are being ferried across to Sweden or by simply "not noticing" people heading to ports with suitcases.

The book also discusses the rescue of some 1,500 Danish Jews from a concentration camp in the Czech Republic. By relentless pressure from the Swedish Red Cross, they first are allowed to get food and then later are simply picked up in a caravan of 30+ buses by the Swedish Red Cross. This is after the Russian Army is in Poland, and they have to travel near the front lines. They travel through bombed out Dresden and are nearby when Potsdam is bombed. The caravan gets hits at least once by artillery, but no one dies.

Overall this was a moving story and an easy read. Probably mostly of interest to those either of Danish heritage or with an interest in the Holocaust.

Climb to Conquer * * *

2007-01-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

This book tells the story of the Tenth Mountain Division, which was formed by a bunch of skiers/mountaineers during WW II. Any skier or climber is sure to know something about the X Mountain Division since the veterans came home and started most of our ski areas: Vail and Aspen are the super famous ones, but they started many, many others including, here in the PNW, Crystal Mtn, Mission Ridge and Mt. Bachelor. For some reason, I had always imagined that they fought in only one battle and basically spent the war skiing. The latter is in a sense true. They trained and skied for 3 years and were the last division to enter the war. However, when they did enter, they were in brutal battles in the mountains in Italy. Their division suffered the worst casualties of any U.S. division, something like 30%.

For me, the most interesting part about the book were the sections where different men talked about what it was like to be in a war. These are people I can entirely relate to. We like the same things, have the same values, and have similar outlooks on life (nature lovers and wannabe ski bums). It was interesting to me that they said you "got used to" people getting killed and your own imminent death -- bizarre as it seems. They also talked about how you could be scared out of your mind and yet still manage to move forward and not be paralyzed by fear. Being around others and feeling a sense of responsibility to them and yourself changed everything.

Overall, I would recommend this book to those interested in the Tenth Mountain Division. It's an easy read if you are interested in the topic.

The Fall of Berlin * * *

2006-12-22T09:10:00.000-08:00

The Fall of Berlin is the follow-up book by the author of Stalingrad: the Final Siege. TFOB starts as the Russians cross the German border in East Prussia. For those who are spotty on their post-WWI geography (meaning 99.999% of us), Prussia was is in the Baltics (meaning up by Lithuania) and extended across modern day northern Germany (formerly East Germany), Western Poland, parts of Lithuania, and far southwestern Russia (parts it annexed after WWII from Germany). Much of the first third of the book is about the invasion of Prussia and the attempts by civilians to escape. This was especially interesting to me because I know someone who's mother and grandmother were among those civilians. About 1/4 million civilians were trapped in Konigsberg at one point, completely surrounded by the Russian Army. My friend's mother was trapped there and was among those that crossed the ice of Frisches Haff (a bay) on foot to reach a small spit of land that the Germans still held. From there they walked into Germany through a thin corridor of German-held land to East Germany. Later after the Germans surrendered, they escaped from East Germany to the West.

The Germans civilians in Prussia were understandably terrified of the Russians. They had been inundated by propaganda about how the ruthlessness the Russians and the horrors they would do against Germans. But soldiers who had been on the Eastern Front knew that the Russians would be driven by revenge -- rather than ruthlessness per se. One Berliner recalled being on a subway when an old soldier announced how Berlin would be flattened if the Russians won, "If they win, they will do to us what we did to them." As it was, the Germans of East Prussia were still unprepared for the fury of revenge. The first target as the troops came were women. The book contains many first-hand accounts that any woman spotted was gang-raped by 10 to 40 soldiers at a time. Deliberate shooting of civilians seems to have been rare, however lines of fleeing refugees were repeatedly straffed by aircraft and run over by tanks. I think to understand in part what the Russians did when they came into East Prussia, you have to understand what the German Army did to Russia. The German Army carried out a policy of living off the land (meaning taking food, shelter, firewood, etc from civilians), laying siege to cities, and Slavic cleanings. Slavs were considered an "inferior race" and there was widespread killing of civilians. t is estimated that 11 million Soviet Union civilians were killed during WWII! In addition, the out-matched Russian Army suffered horrific casualties (like 50% or so). Russian POWs were sent to concentration camps and suffered the same fate as Jews; as the Russians came into Poland, they discovered these concentration camps with Russian POWs. I'm not trying to justify their actions, but rather show the context in which they occurred.

The second half of the book covers the race to Berlin and the downfall of Berlin. Surprisingly this part of the book was not terribly interesting (for me). Lots of space is devoted to troop movements (yawn). You don't get a sense from the book about what the civilians in Berlin went through. This is surprising since there were many diaries published from that period. For some reason, this part just seemed a bit mechanical. Basically, the sense you get from the book is that Berlin fell without much of a fight in the city proper and then people started getting on with their lives. That's hard for me to believe. The city was reduced to rubble and the depression among the people must have been extreme. My next book is "A Woman in Berlin" which is a diary from the 9 days of the battle. I expect that this book will give a different picture.

Stalingrad: the fateful siege * * * * *

2006-12-09T11:45:00.000-08:00

The battle for Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle in the brutal battles on the Eastern front. After surviving a brutal winter and unsuccessful attempt to capture Moscow, the German Army turned its attention to the east and the Caucaus oilfields. They raced forward rapidly in a headlong rush of one success after another. Then they reached the city of Stalingrad on the banks of the Volga. In difficult fighting they managed to capture 95% of the city, but the Russians held on the the north side of the Volga River and a small strip of land on the south side. For months, the Russians and Germans fought a pitiless street battle in the ruins -- while each day winter got closer. In late November 1942, the Russians executed a large counter attack and successfully surrounded the entire 6th Army, by then numbering only about 250,000 men. The Germans were unprepared for winter, and over the next 2 months, they slowly but surely starved to death. When they finally surrendered in early February 1943, they numbered only 90,000. These were taken prisoner and only about 6,000 managed to survive captivity and make it home.

In total, some ¾ of a million Axis troops (Germans and their Hungarian and Romanian allies) were involved and basically all were killed or wounded, except some 6,000 who were taken POWs and managed to survive Siberian work camps. All and all this represented about 1/4 of the men fighting for the Germans on the Eastern front. On the Russian side, some 1 ¾ million troops were involved and about half were killed or wounded.

This book combined reams of archival material such as letters home, memoirs, and official reports to provide not only a sense of the overall battles, but a feeling for what it was like for the individual soldiers. As the film Stalingrad graphically shows, it was grim for the German soldiers. Although I have to say that after reading the book, the film was not nearly as horrific as the truth. One memorable section in the book describes how the doctors had to scrape the lice off injured men with spatulas before surgery. The movie also is from the perspective of only the Germans. The book gives equal treatment to the Russian soldiers. Russian soldiers experienced some 50% casualties, and some references have said that the average survival of newbies on the front was 1 day. The story of the Russian soldiers is that of incredible courage under impossible odds. Of course, lack of courage or allowing oneself to be captured (translation = not fighting to the death) was punished by execution, but that does not by itself explain the willingness to die shown by so many of the men*. I'm not sure what explains the wanton disregard of soldiers lives by their leaders, however. The tendency of the Russians to do frontal attacks against well-guarded positions was shocking.

The one area the book did not discuss, however, was the perspective of the people trapped in the city and those in the surrounding areas. People were not allowed to evacuate, which meant that the 50,000 or so people living there died. Those able to help with the fight were organized into militia or put to use otherwise. In the end, about 2000 civilians survived in the city through the battle which included some 900 children -- of which all but 6 were orphans. Outside the city, the Germans were living off the land, by taking food from the villages and they dismantled all buildings for their own uses. One must presume that the elderly and children in the outskirts did not fare very well either. The book also discusses the anti-Slavic views of the Nazis. They viewed Slavs as ethnically inferior and subjected them to some of the same extermination policies as the Jews. This was seen most vividly in Poland where there were mass killings of civilians, but also in Russia. The treatment of Russian POWs was similar to that of Jews (meaning sent to similar camps and marched into similar ovens) and was dramatically different than that of American or British POWs. The Russian soldiers were very affected by seeing the treatment of Russian POWs and used this as a justification for their later treatment of German POWs. As the same time, in utter Stalinistic perversity, being taken prisoner was a Russian crime since troops were ordered to fight to the death. Obviously you didn't do that if you were taken prisoner. When Russian POWs were returned to Russia after the war, 2/3s were executed or sent to Siberia(!!)

Overall, this book was very interesting. I had not expected to read this book actually, but I was given it as a gift and couldn't put it down. It's like watching a train wreck; it's mesmerizing. I'm interested in understanding the post-war period in Germany. The fall of Stalingrad is immensely important for this because 1) the casualties were so high so this really affected public sentiment back in Germany and 2) what the Germans did in Stalingrad and in Russia fueled the plundering, murdering, and rape that occurred when the Russians made it into Germany. This relentless drive of the Russians to exact revenge lead to a fundamental difference between East and West Germany. One side was laid waste to and the other side not. The next book this author wrote is the Fall of Berlin, which details this.

* It is thought-provoking that such admirable bravery and self-sacrifice can exist in the same people that a few months later were committing horrific crimes against German civilians in East Prussia. Of course, the German Army did worse to Russian civilians. Although on the German side, attacks against civilians seemed to come from the officers and military tactics that used starvation and ethnic liquidation as a weapon. On the Russian side, civilian attacks (rape, murder, pillaging, squashing with tanks) came from the ordinary soldier while the officers were supposed to prevent this. Clearly most didn't try hard to stop it though.

NAPOLA * * *

2006-12-06T12:03:00.000-08:00

NAPOLA (English name: Before the Fall) is a movie set in the National Political Elite schools of the National Socialists (Nazis) in the 1933-1945 period. At the height, there were about 40 of these schools that aimed to turn young men into the leaders needed for for the worldwide German empire. In many ways, this movie reminded me of Dead Poets Society with no Robin Williams character. Saying that, I've just revealed the entire plot -- yes this movie suffers from predictability. But it is well done and the cinematography is very nice.

The film semi-effectively shows how otherwise decent young men could get sucked into and worked up by both the Nazi fanaticism and the seduction of a uniform. Although it really has a Hollywood feel to it so this part seems quite real. It also conveys the "island paradise" aspect of these schools. The film is set in 1943, when the war is going badly and people are really suffering from food-rationing, but the boys have enough to eat and have fun adventures like going gliding. A man who who had been in a Napola commented on this very aspect of the schools. This film ends with the note that at the end of the war, the boys in the schools were sent to fight. They fought fanatically and suffered 50% casualties in an utter waste of life.

For some very odd reason, Amazon classifies this as a gay film (and apparently whoever made the US DVD cover thought the same thing). However, that's like calling the Dead Poets Society a gay film because it involves young men. Before the Fall involves two young men who are close friends, but they are not friends. However, it's true that the main character is a pretty young man who does spend more time than necessary with his shirt off. Personally, I didn't think this was a bad thing.

Heimat (ep 7)

2006-12-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

Episode 7 covers the final months of the war. As in previous episodes, it is concerned with the individuals not with what is happening in the country as a whole. It's as if Schabbach is a little enclave, that is affected by the events outside but is much more concerned about it's own little world.

Otto, who in the previous episode learned about his son with Maria, comes to visit. After an ackward beginning, Otto and Maria rekindle their affair. Otto had been so depressed about Maria sending him packing 3 year ago, that he joined the bomb-disposal squad in hopes that he would be blown to pieces. Now, after seeing Maria again, seeing his son, and talking over what happened 3 years ago, a light turns on inside him. He has a reason to live, and he knows the war is near the end. He and Maria will soon be back together. Well, obviously he had die then. Indeed, he gets blown on his next bomb. Later we see Maria biking out on the frozen fields and crying. Ok, ok, I get this already. Maria's life sucks. Shortly there after the war ends and the Americans come to town. The episode ends with Edgar and his wife (who is perfectly and hilariously acted) packing up to leave their house. Edgar's wife is frantically sobbing, then she sees the tall black American soldiers waiting at the door and her old brothel-madam self shines through. She turns to Edgar, and says "I think maybe we can be of use to the Americans". And she's off to smooth-talk the Americans with a glint in her eye.

Mad Hot Ballroom * * *

2006-12-02T07:49:00.000-08:00

This is a documentary on a 5th-grade program in New York that teaches ballroom dancing to inner city kids. This ethnically and culturally diverse group of kids study ballroom all year and at the end there is an all city competition. On the surface, this seemed to me a little like watching sheepdog trials. Curiously mezmerizing even though, you know, you're just watching kids take ballroom classes. The kids are all in this gawky 12-13 stage when the boys are generally smaller and younger looking than the girls. That creates some visual humor. Also the kids are just starting to not think 'ICK' when they think of the opposite sex. There is a funny sense that all the kids are worrying about cooties. One especially funny scene is when the instructor tells the kids to look into their partner's eyes. They can't do it. Simply can't. By the end, the kids are heating up the floor doing the merenge, tango, swing and foxtrot. That is something to see. Karina (9yrs) was engaged the whole time and liked it. Jake (5yrs) watched but didn't think much of it.

The 1940 and 1950s in Central Europe: Film

2006-11-12T10:27:00.000-08:00

The 1940s and 1950s in Central Europe (Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland) is a historically fascinating and tragic period marked by devastating war and totalitarianism. Below is an annotated list of films reviewed in SunnysideKitchen that are focused on this period.

Some of these films were made behind the Iron Curtain. There are a couple dates to keep in mind for these. Stalin died in 1953 after which there was a loosening of the restrictions on the kinds of films that could be made and filmmakers were no longer in the "socialist realism" straight-jacket. So these films span two different eras: before- and after- Stalin's death. The Hungarian films have another important date: 1956, the year of the Hungarian Uprising, after which hard Stalinism returns to Hungary. For the other Warsaw pact countries, 1968 is the more critical year. This is the year of the Prague Spring. After that is crushed, severe film censorship returns for all filmmakers behind the Iron Curtain and things don't get better until the late 1980s when the communist governments are overthrown.

Burnt by the Sun (1994) This film is set in the early 1930s, so a bit before the 1940s and it's set in Russia, which is not Central Europe. Nonetheless, it is about an important aspect of the tyranny of communism and Stalinism, in particular, that affected Central Europe in the 40s and 50s -- which was the capacity of the system to turn on it's own followers and use this unexpected violence to control. Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov, one of the most famous modern Russian directors.

Ballad of a Solider (1959) Most Americans have no idea of the suffering and sacrifice Russians experienced in the war. This film gives you an air-brushed taste of that. It is a famous Russian film about a young soldier who travels home to help his mother in the midst of the war. Before 1953, all WWII films in Russia had to follow a "great Red soldier" script. After 1953, there are a series of films about the terrible human toll of WWII. This is one of the most famous of those.

Downfall (2004) Excellent film on the last few days of Hilter's life when he is in the bunker. Shows the downfall of Berlin. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

The Bridge (1959) An anti-war film made in the late 1950s in West Germany. Shows the home front situation and mentality as the Americans are pressing across Germany.

Eroica (1957)Two Polish films on "passive heroism". The first is about a man who is not at all interested in dying for his country, but ends up helping the partisans against the Germans none the less. The second is about a group of Polish POWs who are descending to madness and one who makes an unusual sacrifice to help the group morale.

Fateless (2005) Autobiographical film about the experiences of a 14-year old Hungarian Jewish boy who is rounded up and sent to the camps in Poland. Beautiful film.

Heimat Heimat episodes 1-7 follow a German family in a small German village through the end of WWI to the end of WWII. We see from their perspective the radical changes that happened: poverty and hardship after the end of WWI, followed by great infrastructure improvement (roads, electricity) and an increase in personal wealth, the rise of the Nazis and war, and then defeat and occupation by the Americans. I found it a bit slow, frankly.

Ivan's Childhood (1962) Beautiful yet searing indictment of the brutality of WWII. It follows a 10-year old boy, Ivan, who becomes a scout for the army.

Judgment at Nuremberg (1962) Excellent film that explores the culpability of German judges within the corrupt Nazi State and the manner in which people can become morally corrupt even though at each step they take what they believe is the most morally defensible position at the time.

LoveFilm (1970) This film is set in the 1960s in Hungary, but it has many flashbacks to WWII and the immediate post-war period in Budapest. By Hungarian director Istvan Szabo.

Mein Krieg A German documentary (in German with subtitles) using footage taken by soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front. Even if you can't understand German it is interesting because it shows really what it was like from the heady days at the beginning of the invasion as they moved at full speed to their depressing retreat back to Germany after brutal casualties. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Mephisto (1981) This movie is set in the late 1930s in Germany. Explores the role of artists (and by extension intellectuals) within a totalitarian state. It is a clear metaphor to the moral dilemmas faced by artists, such as the director, working behind the Iron Curtain.

The Murderers are Among Us (1945) This movies is set immediately after the war in Berlin. It is one of the most famous of the "Rubble Films". This film show you what Berlin looked like right after the war. Unfathomable. DEFA's first film -- the state film monopoly that started in the Soviet zone of Berlin and then became the GDR film monopoly.

NAPOLA (2004) German movie about a young poor man who goes (against his father's wishes) to a National Political Academy (NAPOLA), which were military schools run by the Nazis. The movie is kind of like "Dead Poet's Society" but at a Nazi military academy.

Shoah (1985) An impressive 8-hr documentary which interviews people who were in Poland and witnessed aspects of the Holocaust. It includes both people who survived the camps and people who saw the trains or saw the camps from the outside. This is a must see for anyone interested in the history of this period.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days This is a film about one of the few resistance groups in Germany during the war. They were a group of Munich students who distributed fliers protesting the war. After Stalingrad, they produced a flier telling people about the huge casualties and arguing for armistace. They were caught and executed. The film focuses mainly on the trials and the resolve of the students to die for their beliefs. This movie illustrates one reason that there was not much resistance -- an effective police state combined with swift execution for those who dared to question the war.

Stalingrad (1993) This German movie covers the bloodiest battle in human history where 1.25 million soldiers were killed and another 1/2 million civilians perished. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Zelery (2003) A romantic epic set in 1945 in Czechoslovakia. A beautiful Czech film that is mostly about village life, but it also illustrates the mass rape and pillaging that Russian soldiers committed as they swept across Central Europe.

Heimat (episode 4, 5 & 6)

2006-11-01T22:46:00.000-08:00

Episode 4 is set in 1938. This episode focused on Maria and her feeling of not having lived. An engineer is boarding with the family, and Maria falls for him. They awkwardly get to know each other. That's about what happens. The peripherial stuff is more interesting. We see that the Nazi party has heavily infiltrated society. About a third of the men at a social dance are wearing the Nazi armband, including the engineer that is wooing Maria. However, Maria continues to resist sending her boys to the Nazi Jugend. We see signs of the rapid investment in infrastructure by the Nazi's and their popularity on account of that. We see large movements of young men in work crews for the roads. Maria's sister-in-law, married to the Jewish jeweller, is quite well off. He shows off the most popular item, a silver ring with a skull. This is popular among the men on the road crews. As in episode 3, life seems to be changing very rapidly.

Episode 5 is set in the winter of 1938 to the summer of 1939. Maria and Otto start a relationship. After no word for 12 years, Paul (Maria's husband) sends a letter saying he will visit. Maria is distraught. Otto leaves. Much misery. Ernst (the youngest son) runs off because he hates his father and joins the Hitler Jugend Air Brigade. Anton is eager to see his dad and writes poems for him. Maria and Anton go to meet Paul at the ship, but they don't let him off because he cannot prove Aryan descent. Hilter announces war with Poland saying that Poland attacked first. People do not seem upset but rather determined to beat the Poles. There are a few references to Jews having a hard time. The village is still changing. With the new highway, it is no longer on the route from Prague to Berlin. Everyone passes them by now.

Episode 6 is set during the height of the war 1942. Ernst is now a fighter pilot. Anton is fighting in Russia. Life on the home front has its privations, but is not too bad. In fact, sometimes the women forget that a war is going on. Anton's pregnant girlfriend comes to live with Maria, and she and Anton marry by proxy. A contingent of French POWs are stationed at the village as workers. Weigund (Anton's cousin) is in the SS but has gotten out of combat for medical reasons. He guards the French. He is brutal and heartless. At one point, he discusses in hush-hush terms the 'final solution' and it's clear he knows what is happening since friends in the SS are doing the dirty work. Otto (Maria's half-Jewish lover and the father of her 3rd son) is working on a bomb squad. He is depressed and views himself as already dead.

It took me 5 months to get through this DVD. It covered the pre-war period which was mainly about the changes in the village as the Nazi government put so much work into infrastructure. But not much happened to my eyes. However, I am looking forward to the 3rd DVD which covers the end of WWII and the post-war period.

Heimat episode 7

Bend it Like Beckham * *

2006-10-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

Heart-warming story about a Sikh Indian girl in London who defies her traditional parents to play soccer. Ok I think that says it all. I saw this positively reviewed in the New York Times when it came out a couple years ago, and it's been on my to see list since then. Sadly, when I actually saw it, well, it left something to be desired. It's for the pre-teen set, and it's basically like the Princess Diaries but with soccer. Haven't seen the Princess Diaries? I guess you don't have a pre-teen daughter. Anyhow, if you're an adult, you're not missing anything.

So basically, Bend it like Beckham, is not really for adults. You already know the plot from the first sentence I wrote. Yes, it's that predictable. You've seen this plot many times before. Now to be fair, I knew ahead of time that the plot was predictable and I was fine with that, but given the reviews, I thought it'd either be a really inspirational soccer story, like "Breaking Away" with a soccer ball, or like a funny soccer version of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". Nope. It's strictly a pre-teen girl movie, but a fairly positive one in that the stars are girls that are into soccer. Oh if you're thinking, well at least I'll see some great soccer...sure there's lots of soccer, but it's very obviously heavily editted so that we see the heads of the actresses and the feet of the stunt doubles.

In summary, this movie is a positive movie for pre-teen girls with a fair bit of soccer, but no XY age 5 to 20 would be caught dead watching this I imagine.

The Motorcycle Diaries * * * *

2006-10-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd break out of my usual routine of watching movies no one has ever seen or will see. The Motorcycle Diaries is adapted from a book of the same name written by Ernesto Guevara (Che) about an 8-month and 12,000km trip he took with a friend across South America in 1952. He was a 23 year-old medical student in Buenas Aires at the time, and this trip marked a turning point for him, after which he resolved to devote himself to the plight of the poor and oppressed. As most know, he became a Marxist revolutionary and fought with Fidel Castro in the 1958 Cuban revolution. In the mid 1960s, he left Cuba to foment revolutions in the Congo and Bolivia, where he was eventually captured and excecuted. One would imagine that a movie about Che Guevara would be infused with righteous grandstanding and a heavy political bias. I despise movies like that (I cannot watch Michael Moore movies, for example), and I have avoided this movie for the last two years, for this reason. But there it was on the rack at the library last week, so I thought "What the heck". I put it on while doing an AM workout, thinking I'd check out the first 20 minutes and then return it if it annoyed me. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it is not a self-righteous soap-box kind of movie.

The Motorcycle Diaries has the plot of a road movie. Plain and simple. They travel 12,000km and meet people along the way, and the men who finish the journey are not the same as the men that started. Our two companions on this virtual road trip, a 29-year old biochemist and a 23-year old medical student both from Buenas Aires, are charismatic and fun. The acting from the two main actors is superb. In particular, the actor who plays Ernesto is perfect, and he's so pretty and sensitive, that I wonder if this isn't really a chick-flick. The journey itself is stunningly beautiful -- across Argentina, up the spine of the Andes to Peru and then down the Amazon. But of course there is more to this movie than simple road tripping, because it is the true story of a man who afterwards devoted his life to helping the poor and was completely willing to die for that. You might disagree with his methods (I do, very much so), but this was a person who devoted his life to a cause bigger than himself. I imagine that many people who decide to completely devote their entire lives to an idealistic cause have an event like this in their lives -- an event that changes these people from youthful idealists who are not precisely sure of what to do, to people who have a very clear vision of their calling and have this incredible resolve and dedication to that. This movie captures that journey for one young man and is very compelling in that way.

This movie has gotten a lot of 5 star reviews. I find this curious. Is there some Norte Americano liberal PC-ness going on here?? It's good, sure, but it's got a lot of rough spots that many reviewers don't mention -- except those reviewers that have serious problems with Ernesto Guevara's politics. On epinions.com on the required "Cons" section, many reviewers write "none". Ok, that's b.s. First off, the editting and transitions were very rough. Snip, they're pushing the bike through snow up a pass. Snip, they're pushing it through dirt in a valley. Huh? Second, the cinematography is highly variable. Sometimes we get these beautiful shots and soft lighting, later it's grainy, later it's like a PBS documentary. Speaking of which, the scenes with the Inca villagers feel like they are from photographing the actors as they toured the village. It's almost like they have come out of character, and the cinematography and feel is just like some PBS travel documentary to the Andes. Lastly, as mentioned in the beginning, I didn't want to see a movie that glorified Ernesto Guevara, nonetheless this is a movie about a real person and that person became a Marxist guerilla fighter who was known for his ruthlessness and ideological rigidity (and also uncommon courage under fire). The post-revolution period in Cuba from what I've read was marked by hundreds of mock trials headed by Guevara that executed people with no legal defense. Under Guevara's brand of Marxist communism, disagreeing was a capital crime. You do not see the seeds of this ruthlessness and rigidity in this movie. It's a shock to imagine the main character in this movie as a violent revolutionary. He seems more like a person who becomes a famous activist fighting for the rights of the poor. So, it's a really good movie, but not a masterpiece.

In summary: This is a movie I would add to my Friday night movie series to watch with friends. This is a foreign film that almost all will enjoy. And there are some who would probably want to make a special point of renting this: If you liked, Y Tu Mama Tambien, then you should see this as it has the same actor. If you have a thing for South America, you should see this because the scenery is superb.

Roads to Koktebel * *

2006-10-14T09:55:00.003-07:00

I picked this movie up from the library, knowing nothing about except that it was a recent Russian movie that made the rounds of the international film festivals. It has no story really, but follows a homeless father and his 11-year old son during a segment of their journey from Moscow to the man's hometown on the shores of the Black Sea. Clearly there is a long back story as to how the man and boy came to be where he is. We piece this together a bit. The man was an aeronautics engineer who grew up on the Black Sea in a town that had an airbase in WWII. Somehow, he made it to Moscow, we never learn how, probably for university. He lived in a nice house with his wife, and when she died, he became an alcoholic and his son's life as well as began a black spiral downward. This movie is a few short weeks in their life as they make their way to Koktebel (the village on the Black Sea), walking, riding the train, hitch-hiking.

By itself, this film was not that interesting, to me. It is interesting instead in that it is a nice example of a certain type of Eastern European film-making style that is not part Western style. In typical western film-making, there is a plot. Act I sets the stage, Act II conflict/problem is introduced and tension builds, Act III conflict is resolved in some way. Many eastern european films do not use this style. Instead we are plopped into the middle of some character's life, we watch it for awhile, then we leave. In this style of film-making, 'plot' is a meaningless concept. It results in a more nuanced film. Slowly over the film we learn, perhaps, something of the characters -- or perhaps like in life, their motivations remain a mystery to us. While watching such films, I am often reminded of the cliche, "Be here now". These films are often full of shots where we focus first on the character and then pull and watch the wind blowing through the grass -- for a loooong time. It's like meditation. Be here now. So, you might be thinking, 'Do people in Eastern Europe really watch such films?' Well, yes, there are film geeks everywhere. But the following story is somewhat telling. The Czech Republic is snickered at in Eastern Europe film culture for being the "Hollywood of the East" because they make hollywood-esque films (that being films decidedly unlike Roads to Koktebel). The motto of the Czech National Film Institute is a subtle recognition of this criticism and sticks its tongue out at it: "We make films people like to watch."

Back to the film, the other reason Roads to Koktebel is interesting is because it is part of a series of films exploring the complexity of Father/Son relationships and the meaning of Father for sons. The Return and Father and Son are two fairly recent (2003) Russian films exploring this relationship. They are very different than what you'd find in a U.S. movie.

Nature Documentaries

2006-09-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

The following is a summary of the nature documentaries I have watched with my personal ratings of the cinematography, educational value, entertainment value, and scare factor. I also include my, Karina's (8 yrs) and Jake's (5 yrs) three-word reviews.

C -- denotes cinematography rating
E -- educational value
P -- plot strength (strong story line or not?)
G, PG, PG-13, R -- scare factor, i.e. is it disturbing for young kids

Planet Earth:Fresh Water C*** E* P* G
Mom: There is some interesting footage if you want to see the specific animals it shows.
Planet Earth:Mountains C**** E** P* G
Mom: Good for footage of cool animals.
Planet Earth:Pole to Pole C**** E** P* PG
Jake: I liked it. Mom: Good for footage of cool animals.
Beavers (IMAX) C*** E*** P***** G
Jake: I like it. Karina: I liked it. Mom: You'll gain a new appreciation for beavers.
Deep Blue C***** E* P* PG-13
Jake: oh too scary! Karina: Cool. Mom: Very cool!!!
Coral Reef Adventure C**** E** P* G
Jake: Lot's of fun. Karina: Fun and I like the music. Mom: I hate the cheesy over the top music and the way-too-good-looking, painfully happily married marine biologist couple irritates me. Honestly, did she order that man in a catalog or something. Oh, the movie, good cinematography.
Dolphins (IMAX) C**** E*** P* G
Jake: Love it! Karina: I've watched this a million times. Mom: I couldn't watch in one sitting, but it's good.
Eyewitness Nature series C** E*** P* G
Jake: Love them! Karina: Double love them! Mom: Can't watch them.
Great White Bear, The C**** E*** P*** PG
Jake: Fun, but poor birds... Karina: Cool! Mom: Great photography! Good location shots.
March of the Penguins C***** E***** P***** PG
Jake: Too scary! Karina: Cool, but I cried. Mom: One of the best, but I find penguins too cutsey.
Survival Island C*** E*** P* G
Jake: Yawn. Karina: Cool! Mom: Fun, but too short.

Survival Island * * *

2006-09-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

South Georgia Island is the site of many long-term studies on albatrosses and penguins and I have worked with much of this data as part of my work on estimation of population status for long-lived species. However, I have never actually seen any of these animals. So I was very interested to see this IMAX dvd shot on South Georgia Island and featuring some of the animals I have known only as data points.

South Georgia Island is the sole available breeding location in a huge part of the southern ocean. It is off Anarctica about 9 days steaming time from the Falklands. Normally it is an inhospitable place, but for a few months in summer, it is teeming with life. Pretty much every square inch of habitable space is occupied by some critter: King penguins, macaroni penguins, fur seals, albatrosses, and elephant seals are featured prominently in this dvd.

This dvd is pretty short, just over 30 min. It's pretty straight-forward wildlife photography -- there is no 'story'. There is a bit of education about the life histories of the species. The cinamatography is ok, but nothing spectacular like March of the Penguins or the recent Deep Blue dvd that I reviewed. Nonetheless it will be interesting to nature enthusiasts, and there are many interesting shots. The shots of penguins and seals traveling long distances like dolphins leaping out of the water was especially neat to me. Karina and I watched it twice. There is no disturbing animal-animal violence, although there is a kind of disgusting scene of skuas eating a dead seal.

Deep Blue * * * * *

2006-09-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

The Deep Blue (2003) is an amazing documentary about life in the ocean. It is filmed in multiple locations around the world's oceans. Polar, tropical, Atlantic, Pacific... Watching it we just couldn't stop say "Oh, Wow, WHAT is that? Whoa, that is sooo amazing!" over and over. Even if you study the oceans and have seen a lot of nature videos, you are guaranteed to see something new and amazing. Probably you will also see footage of something you have always wanted to see. As I write this I am watching night footage of a ray attacking a fish and white-tipped reef sharks tirelessly searching the reef for hidden fish in the dark. Seriously cool stuff. And it has the mostly amazing footage of fish schooling -- like a tornado under water. This ranks as about the best nature photography I have ever seen!! I've seen a lot of IMAX nature documentaries; this one blows all those out of the water (ha, ha).

So it's a MUST see for anyone into nature photography and documentaries. Note it may be a bit much for kids who have a hard time with animals getting eaten. There are some graphic scenes of baby sea lions getting nailed by by killer whales, a pack of killer whales working together to kill a grey whale calf, and other scenes of predators in action: rays, sharks, octopuses, etc. My 5-year old cried during these parts; we lied and told him the calf got away (he wanted to believe this so ignored the graphic evidence to the contrary...). Also the DVD is not exactly educational. It's mostly amazing photography with little dialogue. Kids probably should start off with some more educational DVDs and trips to the aquarium to really appreciate this.

Rented from Netflix, but it's available on Amazon.com too (they have a dorky Penguin cover; for the blog I used the cooler BBC one). Note that Deep Blue is basically photographic highlights from the 8 hr series Blue Planet (2001) also available on DVD at Amazon. Blue Planet

Eyes are the Portal to the Soul: Differences in Film Representations of War

2006-07-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

Written by Kaja
A paper inspired in part from a visit to Sunnyside and joint viewing of many of the following films. The other part of the inspiration was a writing assignment in a class on societal perceptions of conflict. Links are to EEH's reviews after Kaja and EEH watched the films together.

Societies are founded on myths. Whether myths of origin, homogeneity, parity, or freedom, most are constructed and integrated into a society’s precepts based on hindsight and introspection. War myths are integral in a society’s identity and, as such, feature prominently in the form of combat movies. Presentations of war by the media within different countries co-vary with the kind of involvement a state had in the conflict. Factors such as winning and losing, whether a conflict was fought at home or abroad, and collateral damage all bear on how the conflict is represented retrospectively in film. For instance, Germany lost the war, fought on native soil, and suffered massive civilian deaths and as a result, German representations of WWII illustrate absolute war, lack heroism, and demonstrate blame-shifting. Conversely, the US was victorious, fought abroad, and suffered few civilian deaths. As such, American WWII representations consistently present a degree of romantic war, ardent heroism, and moral superiority. Russian war films, however, display similarities to both American and German representations of war. While Russia was victorious and display moral superiority and heroism in WWII representations, the massive civilian casualties prompt portrayals of war as absolute, incomprehensible, and tragic. In all three of these countries, retrospective representations of WWII remain consistent over time because of film’s capacity to address underlying social tensions and continue to fight the home front battle.

As products of their socio-economic and historical past, directors speak to particular demographics, ideologies, and/or identities. Whatever the intentions filmmakers have, they present in their movies their own visions of an aspect of the larger social reality, even if the effect is unintentional (Sobchack 283). Of particular interest is the “realist” approach to film as a medium for reflecting “real life,” either as it objectively exists or as it is reflected in the minds of the film’s heroes (Shlapentokh 4). These “realist” movies do not allow a viewer to avoid fundamental tenets of the film such as themes of anger, religion, racism, etc. War movies are “realist” movies because they explicitly address a salient feature of societal history. As such, there is a link between these “realist” movies and the inferences one can draw from them.

Germany
Germany’s World War II losses were significant. Of the 69 million German inhabitants prior to the war, approximately eight million died (~5.5 million soldiers and 1.8 million civilians) at a ratio of 108.2 deaths per thousand citizens. Ostensibly, the devastation was all encompassing; it obliterated not only the industry, economy and fundamental infrastructure of the German state, but also destroyed civic pride and cohesive identity. In light of this desolation, Germany’s first task was to establish an estimable position within regional and world economy. However, restructuring the German identity was more difficult. Because the Nazi ideology was closely tied to a traditional Deutsches Kultur such as Volk and traditional heritage (ex. songs appropriated for propaganda purposes), there was no identity refuge upon which Germans could rely. Vergangenheitsbewältigung is the process of coming to terms with the Nazi past (Hake 87). One of the ways which German vilification is attempted to be resolved is shifting the blame to a higher authority, thus attributing the actions of an individual, his country, and his culture to the perversion of the individuals controlling the system. Milgram’s experiment, which examines the effects of authority on individual behavior has helped to justify this transfer of blame (Helm 322-330). When revisiting World War II in film, the Vergangenheitsbewältigung aspects of blame shifting, totality of war, and absence of heroism are consistent across time and space within the context of the conflict portrayal.

Die Brücke (The Bridge, 1959) follows the story of a group of German boys ordered to protect an insignificant bridge in their home village during the conclusion of World War II. Indoctrinated into the Nazi ideology, each of the seven boys has their own reasons for joining the ranks of Wehrmacht. One joins to protect the fatherland, another to spite his father, and another succumbs to peer pressure and ignores his misgivings about fighting. The range of motivation for joining the war signals to viewers the multiplicity of motivations that brought able bodies to the war. Through these varied motivations, Die Brücke presents the identities of soldiers as breaching the confines of the Hitler Jugend mold.

Ironically, the boys’ professor—the very one who indoctrinated them into the nationalist ideology—staunchly opposes the war and pleads the commanding officer to not waste the boys’ lives. Heeding this call and acknowledging the pointless loss of young life, the young soldiers are left behind with an experienced officer. Their stationed location, we discover, is the very place that they had played war games only a week before. In the face of the approaching American army and retreat of cynical the Wehrmacht troops, the absurdity of the situation increases. The fatherly commanding officer is shot by a patrol while getting coffee, the boys systematically die while facing the American army, and finally, the two surviving boys prevent the strategic bridge demolition that had been initially planned by the Wehrmacht. As the closing narrative scrolls across the screen, the viewers are told that the bridge had no value whatsoever. As such, the tragic death of every character, from the commanding officer, to the American soldiers, to the Wehrmacht patrol, illustrates the film’s underlying message: there is no redeeming quality to war—it is pointless.

More recent films, such as Stalingrad (1995) and Untergang (Downfall 2005), reinforce the message sent by Die Brücke. Stalingrad follows a company of German ‘storm troopers’ sent to fight in the battle for Stalingrad having just completed a tour of duty in Africa. The importance of the city was contingent upon its function as a Russian transport point for oil and supplies. Germany’s defeat at Stalingrad marked a tipping point in the Reich’s war effort. Stepping into the midst of a hellish guerrilla-war, absolute, random, and gritty battle permeates the images that flash across the screen. In addition to the graphic portrayal of war, the film highlights a recurring clash between ranking officers and soldiers. While in die Brücke the commanders closest to the ground were sympathetic and the indictment of the war as a whole translated into an indirect anathema on the leaders, the conflict as it is portrayed in Stalingrad is visceral. One general not only practices sadism on a personal level, by torturing and executing captured Russians, but also forces his perverse pleasure upon the protagonist. This same general starves his soldiers, but simultaneously hoards enough supplies to feed the entire army for a week in a private warehouse.

The protagonist is a young German officer who realizes that it is necessary to break from the rules in order to serve his troops. Over time, he changes from an optimistic commander to a shriveled husk; this parallels his shift from a romantic view of war to a realistic perception of war. The commander’s singular goal becomes escape and he sinks to all levels to try and return home from what he deems to be a nonsense war. The perverse nature of war and the sadist general are aptly illustrated when the sadist general crumbles into insecurity when his authority is no longer obeyed. In the closing scene our ‘hero,’ seriously wounded in both legs, freezes to death, sitting in his comrade’s embrace. This film, through degradation of the protagonist’s character, shows the lack of heroism in German portrayals of World War II. Additionally, the sadist general illustrates the causes and havoc wreaked upon the populace by a deranged leadership.

Untergang marked the 50th anniversary of Hitler’s death at the conclusion of the war. As such, the film addresses the ultimate figure responsible for the German nightmare. It is a tribute to Hitler’s mental degradation and moral dilemma. The events of the movie come at a time when the Clausewitz plan is being implemented and the city is in uproar, having just been declared a front-line city. Constantly faced with his shaking hands, Hitler’s desperation deepens as he continues to hallucinate about the 9th army as the last source of hope for those left in Berlin. Architectural models only serve to remind both Hitler and the viewers of the “true-greatness” that he had had planned for the Third Reich. Now, on the eve of the Reich’s fall, these legacies of Germany’s greatness, are undermined and left unfulfilled. The portrayal of Hitler himself is riddled with controversies. Caught between realizing his atrocities and reconciling the image of a disintegrating individual, viewers are torn between hate and compassion for this perversion of a seemingly fragile mind. However, the fervor with which the Hitler Jugend fight for and commit suicide for the Nazi ideal and their personal dedication to Hitler himself, reminds one of the tragic loss of an entire generation of youthful promise. Notably, one SS soldier epitomizes the underlying guilt presented throughout the film: “just because we are soldiers, does that mean we stop thinking?” This question strikes at the core of the issue as it is presented in Untergang.

Who is to blame for all of these events, the German people for doubtlessly believing in Hitler, or leaders such as Hitler who led the country down this path in the first place? Confronted with desperate dancing and drunken festivities as the allies approached, Hitler provides a response to this question with two telling statements: “what are young men for,” and “if my German people fail this test, I will shed not one tear for them, they deserve nothing else.” In the first quote, life has lost its meaning and soldiers merely serve as cannon-fodder and thus undermine any and all eloquence about the nobility of war, which he espoused earlier in the film. The second quote, directly challenges the assumption that the events are his responsibility. In essence, this second quote is a rebuke and reprimand of a nation that had placed in him great faith. Ultimately, nothing matters to Hitler. To him, it does not matter if everything is destroyed. When “compassion is a sin, [and] weakness is a sin,” then we know that blame for a national betrayal is a mantel of guilt and authorship firmly imparted by the current generation upon past leaders.

The German portrayal of WWII wrestles with issues of responsibility, reconciliation, and rebuilding. Even in a film as recent as Untergang, the salient issues are still present. In all three movies war has is devastating, illogical, and entraps the entire society. Shifting the blame to crazed leaders, either Hitler himself or other authorities, these leaders guide the precious and impressionable youth of the country to inevitable death. There can be no redeeming quality about an event which brought so fundamentally changed the fiber and course of history. These three aspects are represented so as a direct result of the absolute defeat in the war. It is my believe that certain factors, such as combat portrayal, can change depending on military involvement in new conflicts. Therefore, were Germany to become more militarily active in the world’s wars, then gradual shifts in presentation would occur. As it is, however, overwhelming emotions of resentment and betrayal seem to still permeate German society, especially in the context of Untergang.

Another German war film that illustrates these themes is Die Moerder Sind Unter Uns (The Murderers Are Among Us 1946), which was the first film made in Germany after WWII.

America
In contrast to the devastating effects that German society faced in the wake of war, the US experience was quite different. Not only were the casualties much lower than in German and Russian counterparts (under half a million), but the civilian population remained unscathed by the physical mortification of being present in a war zone. The loss of life averaged only 3.2 per thousand Americans and the war remained a strange and distant event separate from daily life. American involvement in the war dictated that a different set of portrayals be present in its film presentations of battle. The war was presented as a moralistic war; it was valiant, relatively organized, and bloodless. Recent films have included more gruesome depictions of violence; however, they continue to present the effort as heroic and morally just, even if somewhat less pristine.

Because the US victory sustained a relatively small number of casualties, Americans have come to view the war years as a “golden age” when “a can-do generation of Americans solved the world’s problems” (Dickran 719). Thus, the war was not only a necessary war, but a “good war” as well, justified in retrospect on victorious humanitarian grounds. After all, victor’s justice and rationalization “after the fact as the ‘best war ever,’ redeemed its negative social impact” (Dickran 723). Because of mass media technology, Hollywood movies and photojournalism were forms of cultural production that could address the broad impact of the war on American society. Ultimately, WWII films are about living and dying, and what constitutes a good life (Basinger 80). The combat movie genre, at least in the US, definitely had addressed questions of ideology as the justification for involvement: “if you had to die young, what would make you a noble sacrifice and what would make it all a waste? What about killing? If you had to do it, did that make you a killer? What about when the war was over, and you returned home, having killed? Would it all change you forever” (Basinger 80). Ultimately, the answers lie in the film representations themselves.

Saving Private Ryan (1998) was an “occasion for another solemn encounter with the meaning of World War II and should be understood as a last acknowledgement of…a face-to-face salute to the surviving warriors” (Doherty 301). According to Doherty, Saving Private Ryan is best understood as a firm acknowledgement of that generation’s commitment and accomplishments and as a “final act of generational genuflection” (301). With a tag line, “in the last great invasion, of the last great war, the greatest danger for eight men…was saving one,” viewers understand that Saving Private Ryan is the ultimate heroic ideal, romantic in every sense. Smacking of “leave no man behind,” the portrayal of the conflict is un-realistic in the one sense of singular soldier retrieval.

The tale is bracketed by the present-day time frame of a graveside visit at the Normandy Memorial Cemetery and by a pair of furious combat sequences. The entry into purgatory begins with a battle overture depicting the Allied landing at Omaha Beach. A man’s intestines spill out of his gut, a face blows apart, a dazed GI with a bloody stump grips his detached forearm, and a wounded man suddenly disintegrates into a shredded torso. These are the terrors, which confront the viewer at home, harrowed by the graphic representation of the war on film. Watching the movie, I could not help but wonder what it would have truly been like; would I display the same seeming resolve and heroism that was flashing before my eyes? As Captain Miller screams, “Let’s get in this war!” the soldiers surge forward into what seems like the apocalypse.

There is a combat squad formed to save Private Ryan: an idealized leader, a grizzled veteran, a tough guy, an Italian, a Jew, a compassionate medic, a sniper, a clerk, etc. Private Ryan is himself from Iowa and captivates the heart of the country. This group composition uses broad strokes to cover most American stereotype and to endear and personalize the cost of war. Subsequently, each character is sequentially eliminated and brings the message of devastating, but heroic war to the home front.

Russia
Russia holds the position as a hybrid in style. While Russia emerged as one of the three main victors of World War II, it suffered by far the largest military and civilian casualties of any other state. This is an attribute not only of Russia’s proximity to Germany and the invasion tactics employed by the Germans, but under-equipment and inexperience. As such, the social repercussions of fighting for the motherland and being successful in their endeavors manifest themselves in having fought a heroic just war, but with the underlying current of devastation and war tragedy. During Stalin’s time (1929-53), cinematographers had to obey the official ideology regardless of their personal convictions and ideals. However, after Stalin’s death and the liberalization of the regime (1954-85), film directors were finally able to somewhat express their own views of the world (Shlapentokh 16). Because of the regularized nature of films produced prior to 1953, I will focus on movies that were released during this “liberalized” era.

The narrative of Ballad of a Soldier (1959) is forthright. A soldier shoots and destroys two tanks, he is commended with four days leave, and he travels home to fix his mother’s roof. The majority of the film takes place on a train and highlights the mechanics and process of returning home. Aloyosh, the soldier, is a character that is identifiably Russian. With Russian height, hair, and build, he heralds the development of a new type of hero within Russian cinematography: true Russians (Shlapentokh 140). As this new type of hero, he embodies a lack of formal education, is good natured, from the country, and dies a hero’s death in an act of martyrdom and symbolic Russo-Christian ordeal (141). Aloyosh continues on his journey, one sees through the wagon windows the devastations of war (burned houses, poverty, discarded machines), but his optimism does not wane. Here Aloyosh is a hero, but he is a hero of everyday life. His form of valiance does not manifest itself through zealous disregard for his personal safety, but instead posses a quiet perseverance that appears to be able to get him anywhere, given enough time.

Unfortunately, as Aloyosh arrives at home, he only has time for one quick embrace, a kiss, and then departure. Using panning and low-angle shots of his lonely mother, the angles bring a particular emotional aspect of the movie. The low-angle shots establish the dominance of the mother figure, and the pan-shot establishes the bleak landscape that Aloyosh left behind (Dick 12-28). In Russian culture, the mother figure is a particularly strong and important figure; this film in its construct and execution strongly reaffirms this fact (Gillspie 136). The epilogue poignantly annotates the underlying devastation of war: “This is all we wanted to say about our friend, Aloyosh. He could have become a splendid citizen, he could have decorated the world with gardens. But he was, and will always stay, in our memory as a soldier…a Russian soldier.” The non-specificity of the tale—we are never told anything about his background, life story, or even hobbies—is such that the film speaks to as many as possible and justifies the loss of many young men who died protecting their mothers and, allegorically, the motherland.

Mikhail Kalatozov’s Cranes are Flying (1957) outlines several aspects of war: protection of the homeland, heroism, and premature death. What is particularly intriguing is that the hero dies without killing any of the enemy and it is quite possible that he dies without firing even one shot. Yet, he and his comrades are bearing arms. This implies that enemy contact is imminent and that losses are anticipated on both sides (Shlapentokh 136). All of the film’s main characters are patriots, imbued with a heroic desire to defend their homeland and personal lives. Each has his own private life, complicated relationships and strong morals, which only reaffirm his position as a common citizen, not a soldier reared in a crucible of hell.

Each character comes from a diverse background. A father parts with his family, an intellectual parts with his wife and colleagues, and the hero—Boris—waits among the crowd to bid his fiancée Veronica farewell. As a volunteer, he wants to defend her and the motherland which she embodies; however, they are unable to meet. The hero’s eventual demise, as is consistent with the hero/tragic war duality, demonstrates that Russia’s victory will not lessen the tragedy of an individual’s death or of the collapse of a dream for familial happiness. However, once more, despite the war’s obliteration of his life, his death takes on meaning because he actively protected the lives of others (Gillspie 136). His death occurs on a very personal level. Focusing on the feelings of the mortally wounded hero, Boris’ dying thoughts are of marriage and Russia’s victory. Although his life did not individually save the country, the continued emphasis in Cranes are Flying on aggregate sacrifice, reaffirms the justification of the heavy casualties absorbed by Russia during WWII. Russia is saved from the Nazis so that other people may enjoy their personal and private happiness.

Elem Klimov’s Come and See (1985) departs greatly from both Cranes are Flying and Ballad of a Soldier by inviting the viewer to witness Nazi atrocities in occupied Belorussia as experienced by the protagonist, Florian (Flor). Flor is an accidental participant in war, a naïve draftee. His mother, left alone with two small children, is unwilling to see her “man” go with the partisans, who at first seem quite sinister (they are portrayed as jaded and amoral). He is a survivor and eyewitness to some of the Nazi atrocities: German soldiers herding villagers into a church and then setting it on fire and tossing back inside the young boy who attempts to escape; dozens of corpses of recently executed villagers are heaped at the back of houses, caught on camera as if by chance. Flor’s mother and sisters are among the dead and after seeing them, staggers off with a few survivors. These men are ambushed on a field as they milk a commandeered cow and only Flor survives. An elderly peasant tries to lead him to safety as the Germans move in and massacre the inhabitants of this village, too. After the debacle, a group of partisans arrive, capture, and execute some of the merciless and barbaric Germans responsible. The manner in which Klimov manipulates his audience, is such that the subsequent cold blood execution of the Germans causes relief and a sense of partially implemented justice.

However, the absolute grotesque massacres and Flor’s trials and tribulations see the development of Flor into a hero. The representation of brutal war presented here, as opposed to Ballad of Soldier and Cranes are Flying, breaks with the trend seen before. As Suid proposed to be the case of Vietnam on American media, I would suggest that the Afghanistan war had a similar effect on Russia’s portrayals of war—merely to a more polarized extreme.

It is striking that the social repercussion of war on society never seem to leave us. With Russian WWII cinema there is was an emergence of the ‘True Russian,’ or a hero who does not represent a socialist society so much as to embody Russia (Shlapentokh 140). Boris and Flor both posses these attributes, however, Aloyosh in Ballad of a Soldier embodies this Russian form of heroism. According to Shlanetokh, these promotions were not perfunctory, but intentional in constructing a Russian identity, because “cinematographers felt it their civic duty to describe truthfully some aspects of their society [and] also wanted to send moral messages that ordinary people would not find in official mass media or education” (Shlapentokh 129). Within the context of making movies that deviated from party guidelines, it is important to remember that antiwar films were seen as tools for dissident behavior (Culber 88). As such tools, the texture, nuances, and messages found in these movies take on greater significance.

Conclusion
Movies are a part of culture and are reflective of shifts in perceptions. If one society is more prone to glorifying war and violence, the trend is predicated on past events and carries through from one generation to the next. Films not only help to reinforce these changes, but also act as chronicles of these changes over time. In the context of WWII film representation, the particular results and incidents each country experienced directly influenced how the media portrayed the conflict. Germany’s presentation brims with resentment, betrayal, and sense of deep sorrow as part of the process of healing while American portrayal generally posses a large amount of moral justification, heroism, and war as not so bitter. Because of Russia’s combination of the three factors, portrayals developed into a form of reconciled nationalism presented through the ‘True Russian’ hero, but the effects of an absolute war were remained. I would propose that it became such a large feature of the genre due to the massive civilian death tolls. I would not, however, anticipate the same representation of absolute war in French movies because the social trauma was funneled through glorification of the Le Resistance.

Bearing in mind that identities are constructed and can change over time, there has been a Marked change in the representation of the violence of war itself in US cinema. Any WWII perceptions of American ‘true grit’ as intrinsically superior to samurai fanaticism or storm-trooper discipline was erased by the Vietnam conflict (Doherty 282). As such, the pristine nature of battle itself and its representation rapidly degenerated after Vietnam and became the visceral, gut-wrenching portrayal we see today in Saving Private Ryan or other movies which openly vivisect a victim. Thus, the significantly more aggressive portrayal of German brutality may be a factor of Russia’s involvement in Afghanistan. Comparable in the effects it had on Russian society, Afghanistan dispelled any notion harbored of Russian heroism conquering all. If Germany reasserts military power more forcefully in the future, then I would suggest that there will be a shift in this cinematographic rhetoric as well.

Bibliography
Basinger, Jeanine. The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of Genre. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1986

Culbert, David and John Whiteclay Chambers II. World War II, Film, and History. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1996

Dick, Bernard F. Anatomy of Film. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1978

Doherty, Thomas. Projections of War: Hollywook, American Culture, and World War II. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1993

Gans, Herbert J. “The Rise of the Problem-Film: An Analysis of Changes in Hollywood Films and the American Audience,” Social Problems 11(4) Spring 1964: 327-336

Gillespie, David. Russian Cinema. New York, NY: Pearson Educations Limited, 2003

Hake, Sabine. German National Cinema. New York, NY: Routledge, 2002

Helm, Charles and Mario Morelli. “Stanley Milgram and the Obedience Experiment: Authority, Legitimacy, and Human Action,” Political Theory 7(3) Aug. 1979: 321-345.

Kalatozov, Mikhail. The Cranes are Flying. USSR, 1957

Klimov, Elem. Come and See. USSR, 1985

Shlapentokh, Dmitry and Vladimir Shlapentokh. Soviet Cinematography 1918-1991: Ideology Conflict and Social Reality. New York, NY: Aldine De Gruyter, 1993

Spielberg, Steven. Saving Private Ryan. USA, 1998

Sobchack, Vivian. “Beyond Visual Aids: American Film As American Culture,” American Quarterly 32(3) 1980: 280-300

Suid, Lawrence H. Guts and Glory: Great American War Movies. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1978

Tashjan, Dickran. “Art, World War II, and the Home Front,” American Literary History 8(4) Winter 1996: 715-727

Shoah * * * * *

2006-07-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

This documentary defies words. But that didn't stop me from writing a very long blog on this. It is a 9 hour documentary of interviews with survivors of the holocaust and witnesses to the holocaust. Anyone with an interest in WWII, the holocaust, ethnic conflict, genocide or Isreal should see this documentary. It is very well done. There are no gory photos. In fact there are by and large no historical photographs. It is all modern interviews with people who where there and who are brave enough to talk about their experience. Much of it is talking about mundane stuff and not just in the camps. There are many interviews with people in the towns who remember the deportations or who worked and lived near the camps or railroad stations. A lot of the interviews are in small Polish villages in the 1970s. That in and of itself is interesting.

As mentioned the documentary discs 1 & 2 interview many Poles. To appreciate these interviews, you should know that there is something the Poles in the interviews are leaving out. There was a lot of anti-semitism in Poland pre- and post-WWII. You only get a whiff of this at the end of disc 2 when an old woman and man start going on about Jews being responsible for Jesus' death and thus bringing blood upon their heads. It is well documented that many non-Jewish Poles helped the Germans and applauded their extermination of Jewish Poles. It is also well documented that the few Jewish Poles that managed to survive (90% of Jewish Poles were killed by the Germans) faced extreme harassment and murder at the hands of non-Jewish Poles on their return. In one of the worst cases, 80 Jewish Poles who had returned home to their small village in 1946 were rounded up and beaten to death by the non-Jewish villagers. Unlike Germany, Poland has engaged in national denial about its complicity in the extermination of Jewish Poles. Invariably when this issue is brought up, Poles make an argument about how non-Jewish Poles suffered in the war and were themselves targeted for extermination by the Germans. "How can you criticize us when we suffered so much!". You see this over and over on blogs, film reviews, & book reviews posted on-line by Poles. I can sympathize with this view since everyone knows that Hilter intended to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth (and largely succeed in Eastern Europe), but what is less well known, is that Hitlar, as part of Generalplan Ost, also planned to eliminate the Poles who were considered too anti-German to simply deport to Siberia, which was the plan for the other Slavs in Eastern Europe. Poles suffered unmitigated brutality during WWII, over 2 million civilians were killed, Poles were violently deported off their farms to make room for German settlers, and many of the war crimes/massacres at the Nuremberg trails involved actions in Poland. Nonetheless, if Germans can deal with the complicity of their grandparents and can actively try to root out the seeds of anti-semitism, why can't Poles? A recent book on what happened to Jews in Poland after WWII is ‘Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz,’ by Jan T. Gross.

I saw Shoah foremost because of my interest in the 20th century history of Central Europe, but also because there have been profound reverberating effects of the holocaust on the current 'World Order' what with the emigration of people of Jewish descent into the US and the establishment of Israel. Of course, Europe is very different. In Central European countries, there were large economically important Jewish communities. Now they are gone -- simply vanished. But the holocaust wasn't just a tragic, horrific historical event, a chapter in the history books from which we all must learn so that "it never happens again". The world we live in today has been fundamentally changed by the events of 1938-1945, including the holocaust, and understanding the world today requires grasping the enormity of what happened then.

There are 4 discs each 2 hrs + long. The disc content is reviewed separated below.

Disc 1 contains interviews with 3-4 survivors. Two were the sole survivors from 97,000 people who were rounded up and exterminated in Poland and surrounding areas in the early part of the "final solution" when guns and gas vans were used. They survived by miraculously surviving being shot and buried in the final days of their camps. While as I mentioned there is nothing in itself visually disturbing and much the dialogue is quite mundane, there were a few very difficult sections. It was very hard to listen to one man talk about having to dig his family out of one of the mass graves and burn them, and about how he begged to be shot but they refused since he could still work. Another difficult part was the interview with one man who talked about what it was like for people (Jewish) who were transported in from outside of Poland and who had no idea what was going to happen. He was one of the 100 men that would be selected from each train load unloaded in Treblinka. These men were to immediately sort and clean the clothes that were shed when the rest, thousands, undressed and were moved to another area sight unseen. He describes working furiously while surrepticiously trying find out what would happen to his family by asking one of the older crew leaders (another prisoner) directing the new guys. His description is chilling: "The man hissed 'they've been killed'. I whispered 'That's not possible! They were here 15min ago.' At that moment, we were in complete shock. You could see the information spreading among the men -- that their wives, their children, their parents, their brothers and sisters who were there just a moment ago...were dead. That night in the barracks -- each man lay in shock unable to sleep, just staring. In the morning, 4 or 5 men had managed to take their lives. The shock is more than you can imagine." So yes, there are parts that are hard to hear.

Disc 2 also concentrates on the same era -- the early part in 1939-1941 when 97,000 Jews were killed with guns and 3 gas vans (moving vans where the exhaust was diverted into the compartment where people were packed). Disc 2 focuses more on interviews with Poles who were in the area -- living near the building where the people were gathered, working in the forests or nearby fields, or simply living next to the Jewish quarters. It also has interviews with some Germans who worked in the camp and with the wife of the Nazi school teacher who was one of the German settlers sent to Poland. This woman was particularly interesting to me -- she had clearly come to some acceptance of having been there and known what was happening. You just didn't look and didn't want to know simply because you didn't dare. But everyone there knew.

That the Western world stood by, proverbially holding their hands over their ears and shouting "I don't want to know", while millions were systematically exterminated is something that I found myself continually returning to while watching Shoah. I don't feel any moral superiority to the Western citizenry of 1938, rather I am struck how, as individuals, we have such a strong inclination to bury our heads in the sand and secondly I feel dismayed by the inability of citizens to stop a government's slide to militarism and evil.

Disc 3 & 4 notes to come.

Viewed on DVD from Netflix.

Himalaya ****

2006-07-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

Yaks, big mountains with no trees, different culture, and an exciting adventure to boot. I picked this up on a lark from the library and was surprised that I'd never seen this before. It was an Oscar nominee for best foreign film a number of years ago. It's the story of an old man, the chief in a Himalayan village, whose son is killed in an accident. The old man in his grief blames his son's best friend and a battle of wills ensues -- for the son's friend is the most qualified to take the son's place as the new chief and is best qualified to lead the yaks over the mountains to trade salt. But the old man will hear none of that and insists on leading the yaks train himself, along with a rag-tag bunch of others, over the mountains. It is a beautiful and at times nerve-racking trip, during which the old man and the young man learn a great deal about themselves and each other.

The fantastic cinematography really shines in this movie along with the inside view of a really different culture. People with a different culture and yet people beset by the same foibles of stubborness, petulence, and irreseluteness and blessed by the same strengths of courage, inventiveness, and kindness.

Check it out; it's a good one for a Friday night.

Fateless * * * * *

2006-07-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

Movies about the holocaust always make one hesitate. "Am I really in the mood for this?" is the invariable question. Fateless is a movie set during the holocaust – although it is not *about* the holocaust. Rather it is a movie about the most profound experience of the script writer's life, which was the year he spent in a concentration camp in Poland. The film is not making a statement. It is not trying to 'make you understand'. Rather it is an honest and personal story about what it meant to him to go through this experience. In this, it challenges our definition of the horror of the holocaust, because that definition must somehow come to grips with… happiness. For the writer, happiness was the one free hour they had each day between end of work and lock-down in the barracks – an hour that just so happened coincided with dinner. This hour was raw happiness. In that moment, it seemed he was to say, you are not thinking about the bigger picture that your happiness is an artificial result of the fact that you are being worked and starved to death. You are concerned with the here and the now, with your small spot of reality, and in that moment, he experienced the intense happiness of a moment of free time combined with the anticipation of food. Also the film shows the profound bonding that occurred between the prisoners. Again it occurs when they are faced with inhumanity, for example being forced to stand all day and night, but nonetheless regardless of the reason, the reality is that intense bonding occurs. Also he experienced true friendship and kindness in the camps – from fellow prisoners in the camp who reached out to help him. In some ways the film reminded me of the feelings that war veterans try to convey – the conflicting feeling that their experience was hell but at the same time was the most profound and bonding experience of their life.

Fateless is a beautiful and honest movie that I strongly recommend to anyone who has the film “Schindler’s List” on their personal top 100 film list. The writer is highly critical of Schindler’s List, which he views as not an honest portrayal of the experience, but rather a Hollywoodification of the experience and a film that makes us view the people sent to the camps as caricatures rather than people just like anyone else. Nonetheless I think that if you didn’t like Schindler’s List or intend never to see it, then Fateless probably isn’t for you either. Personally, I think Fateless is quite a bit better than Schindler’s List, and it surprises me that it did not get a bigger indie theatre showing in Seattle.

A clip from the movie (this is the low point for the protagonist):

Viewed on DVD from Netflix.
My epinions review of Fateless.

Da Vinci Code * *

2006-06-18T08:33:00.001-07:00

I had a hard time following this movie. Although I have a decent handle on the history of Christianity, I have not read the book. Nor do I have any interest to, but merely because I rarely read fiction and the book has gotten lukewarm reviews from friends. So during the film, I had to keep asking my friends for clarifications. Who is that guy? What's that meeting about? Is the albino supposed to be the bad guy? After this latter question, my friends asked if I was watching the movie and had noticed that little part where the albino MURDERED someone. To which I replied that you can never tell in movies, 'good' guys murder people all the time in capers -- witness say Bond movies -- and a man that in his dying moments strips naked and writes symbols on his body in blood, well...it's not obvious that's the 'good' guy. Anyhow it didn't help that we were watching a Russian bootleg copy of the film. There were no subtitles for the french dialogues, although helpfully there were subtitles for the aremaic dialogues. Of course, the subtitles were in ... russian.

So the screenplay races through characters with little introduction, yet it belabors and explains historical stuff 3x and insults the intelligence of the audience. I'm not making this up -- the screenplay has a bit to explain who Mary Magdallen refers to. I'm surprised they didn't have a part to explain who Jesus Christ is -- for those in the audience who recently arrived from outerspace. The screenplay had other faults. It was so predictable that I was able to figure out the ending as soon as the Holy Grail expert came on and started analyzing the 'Last Supper' painting. This was a bit anti-climatic. I mean honestly, this woman?? She has negative charisma, for Christ's sake (ha ha)! Well, her acting fit with everyone elses -- subpar and uncharismatic. Seriously, everyone scrowls through the entire film. Even though I'm a Hanks fan, I think he was mis-cast. He just can't do action/caper movies. He is much more intriguing to watch when he is sitting on a desert island watching the grass grow.

As for the subject matter, I found it personnally a bit unsettling. I was raised as a Unitarian Christian, and the persecution of Christians who believed in a unitarian concept of God and the non-divinity of Christ is traced to the First Council of Nicaea in 325 when the divinity of Christ becomes orthodox doctrine and all other views were declared heresy. What followed were centuries of persecution of those with non-trintarian beliefs and in the 16th century, many people were executed for teaching against the concept of the Trinity. As a result, the followers of Arius (forebearer of Unitarians) were reduced to small hidden congregations. Today, these Nicene-tenets of persecution are so commonplace and accepted that most mainstream denominations and "non-denominational" Christian groups teach that any religion that does not adhere to the basic tenents formulated by the Nicean Creed, are not Christian.

Well, then again, it's not like I'm losing sleep over this part. Maybe if the movie had been more entertaining I would have been absorbed in it rather than mulling about history.

The Great White Bear * * * *

2006-06-12T11:28:00.001-07:00

This is a National Geographic documentary from 1999 about a mother polar bear and her 2 cubs. It is set on the Svalbard archipelago, which is north of Norway just above the artic circle. This area is strikingly beautiful and the footage covers parts of spring, summer and fall. Although this documentary doesn't have the glitz of, say, March of the Penguins, nor its tight story-line, nonetheless it has some fantastic photography. You'll see the mother as she comes out of the den for the first time, fun scenes of mom and cubs playing ice-plunging in the mushy ice, and underwater footage of the bears swimming. The footage doesn't just focus on polar bears, you'll also learn about and see good footage of actic foxes, guillimonts, bearded seals, walruses, Svalbard reindeer, and artic gulls. The footage of the bearded seals was especially interesting and it includes hard to get and rare underwater footage. I recommend this film for anyone who likes nature photography and/or is interested in the artic.

I saw this with my kids (8 and 5 yrs). There is some old footage of a polar bear being shot, and this was a little too sad for my 5 year old. A seal is killed, but it's not graphic. Some guillimont chicks get eaten by foxes and gulls, but again it's not gruesome. Overall, there were a couple of places that my 5-year old hid under the covers, but it was not nearly as scary as "March of the Penguins" which my 5-year old was unable to watch. My 8-year old (who loves animal documentaries) was entertained throughout and enjoyed that it focused on the many different species living on Svalbard.

Run time: 55min

The Murderers are Among Us * * * *

2006-06-09T23:34:00.000-07:00

Die Moerder sind unter uns (The Murderers are among us) occupies a special place in popular German film. It is the very first film made after WWII in Germany. It was made in 1946 in Berlin, and it is set against a horrific backdrop of destruction. It's really unfathomable. There is a whole series of films from this time called the "Rubble Films". Rubble, rubble everywhere. Mountains of rubble. Lines of women, only women, with pails move the rubble just to have a way to walk from A to B. I was in Berlin in the mid-1980s and saw parts of town that were clearly rebuilt after being bombed. I went to the museums and saw the photos. But it's much more powerful in film since you see how the rubble was from skyline to skyline, and there is simply no structure standing.

Oh, a story. Yes, there is a story. It is a story about a man suffering from post-traumatic stress from having been a part of atrocities. If you say atrocities and WWII, you naturally think of the Holocaust, but this isn't about that. This is about a soldier who witnesses the atrocities in Poland where Hitler waged a war of annilation and where execution of civilians, POWs, and Jews by regular soldiers was widespread. The Eastern front was a vicious war with no regard for human life, and on that front, Poland was especially horrific. Hilter intended to use Poland for expansion of Germany and planned to eradicate the Poles to do it. Of the crimes against humanity presented at the Nurenberg Trials, the non-Holocaust ones are almost all from Poland. There were mass executions of 10,000s of thousands of civilians and POWs at a time. Horrific stuff.

In the film, a young, surprisingly well-fed and healthy, woman returns from a concentration camp to her rubble of an apartment in Berlin and finds it is occupied by a man. The man is the traumatized ex-soldier refered to above. He is exceedingly unpleasant, yet somehow she falls in love with him (huh?). Through her love, he begins to discover that life might actually be worth living. But no smaltzy Hollywood movie is this. No, he's pretty much a cynical, depressed drunk 99% of the time. At one point, an old man in the story gives the nice young woman some good advice: "It's all well and good to try to save someone, but you should not run headlong into disaster to do it." The soldier eventually meets his old commanding officer who ordered the execution of civilians. Now the proper ending for this film would be for the ex-soldier to murder his ex-commanding officer and then commit suicide. This was indeed the original ending, but the powers that be in 1946 didn't think that was the best message to be putting out there to the public. So instead we get a hokey happy ending about seeking justice not revenge -- which isn't hokey at all except that it is within the context of this film. The film is a bitter, dark and biting commentary on society, war, and religion -- and a happy ending doesn't fit.

Bottom-line: This is one of the more memorable films I've seen for a long time. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in Germany, visiting Germany, or WWII.

Control Room * * *

2006-06-08T00:10:00.000-07:00

Control Room is a documentary on the Al Jazeera news station from just before the invasion of Iraq to right after the fall of Baghdad. We start with one of the lead journalists in his car in Iraq (I think), and he is talking about his incredulity about the impending war. The style continues like this as a fly-on-the-wall view of mainly Al Jazeera journalists, the US PR fellow, and the Al Jazeera chief, as to what they are thinking and feeling as the war unfolds. All these people are well-educated, erudite, and earnest. I was fascinated while listening to them give their personal impressions of what they are seeing on the TV or what they are reporting about right at that moment. The Al Jazeera chief is especially intriquing. Very sharp guy and very charismatic -- in a way that probably will be surprising for an American. At least it was surprising for this American. As the war proceeds, the Al Jazeera journalists and chief are visibly becoming more and more tired. They haven't slept for days. The day that the US arrives into Baghdad, we see the bombing of the building from where Al Jazeera is broadcasting. It's very sad, as one of the journalists is killed. The Al Jazeera folks are very affected, as you would expect, and basically you are watching as they find out what happened and then talking sort of woodenly about it and not really being able to comprehend it. The documentary ends as we watch the statue of Sadaam being taken down. The Al Jazeera journalists are watching and are dumbfounded -- 'Where is the Iraq Army? This is so embarassing...."

I found Control Room a very interesting documentary. You basically have a bunch of intelligent and interesting people talking about their experience and interpretation of the Iraq War as it's happening. I did not find the documentary biased itself. Of course, the Al Jazeera journalists and chief are biased -- they say so themselves, but also argue that everyone is. How can you not be? I thought that was a specious argument since the point was they are VERY biased as opposed to not so very biased, but anyhow.... But the documentary itself did not seem to take their side or anyone's side. The US Army PR guy actually comes across very well: intelligent, honest, sincere, and compassionate, while at the same time holding his ground against the Al Jazeera journalists who argued that the US Army was invading Iraq to take over Iraq. Interestingly, I found I related most to this US Army PR guy. He had his own views, but he understood that the Al Jazeera journalists interviewing him had different views and different life experiences and he wanted to understand why their views were so different. For example, one of the things he mentioned was that Arabs he talked to always linked the Iraq War to Palestine, whereas an American never would. He talked about how it made him feel awful and ashamed that he was more affected by seeing the pictures of dead American soldiers on Al Jazeera than the pictures of dead Iraqis.

I had a hard time wrapping my head around the viewpoint of the Al Jazeera journalists and the other journalists too at times. I got the impression they wanted the Army to pinpoint troop locations for them to publish, and they were annoyed that the Army was being vague and probably even intentionally misleading them about troop locations. I was also frustrated that the Al Jazeera journalists could never allow that maybe Sadaam was a bad guy and that lots of Iraqis wouldn't like him. Their view was solidly that this was an occupying invasion. While I understand that view, I also felt like they put one spin on the stories and didn't address the going from the 'frying pan' into the 'fire' aspect (or the other way around, which is what the Army PR guy might have reasoned). War is awful. That is what Al Jazeera was clearly showing very graphically. The Army PR guy would have agreed, but he would probably argue that to get to something better, a war is necessary even if it is awful. That issue wasn't directly discussed by the Al Jazeera journalists, and the documentary would have been much more interesting if they had. Maybe they would say they felt war is never justified or at least, occupation is never justified. This is a defensible position, but they are never asked so we don't know. But then I suppose they might counter that that is beside the point. The real point is that we don't experience the real price and misery of war, and so we don't rightly put enough cost on that.

Bottom-line: I recommend this to anyone interested in listening to a group of moderate, well-educated Arabs talk about their views on the eve of the Iraq war.

Die Bruecke (The Bridge, 1959) * * *

2006-05-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

The Bridge (Die Bruecke) (link to the DVD at Amazon) I stumbled across a mention of Die Brucke (The Bridge) while reading reviews of Stalingrad on www.amazon.de, the German Amazon.com site. I was reading to find out what Germans were writing to fellow Germans about this movie. Most of the German reviews of Stalingrad were commenting on the depiction of regular German soldiers as regular people (not monsters) in an impossible situation where they were trying to do their job. But all also discussed the anti-war theme of the movie. In these reviews, three German anti-war films were always mentioned: Das Boot, Stalingrad and Die Brucke (The Bridge). And thus I came to watch this 1956 movie about a group of German teenagers at the end of WWII who end up 'defending' a little bridge outside their town.

As I have mentioned in other reviews of German films dealing with WWII, there is a current of deep bitterness about WWII in modern German culture. Immediately, post-WWII the sentiment was about what you expect in a defeated population -- wounded pride, denial of atrocities, and a glorification of the German youth that died. But in 1960s-1970s, the children born post-WWII came of age. The phenomena of the 1970s happened across Europe as well as in the U.S., and part of this era, as we all know, was a rejection and negative view of the previous generation -- their parents. In Germany, the same thing happened but on top of it there was the undeniable fact that the previous generation was viewed as complicit in terrible atrocities and aggression. It was not just a rejection of Nazism; it became hatred of Nazism and of the propaganda concerning everything that happened from after WWI to the end of WWII. One of the turning points, I've read, was a speech by then president in the early 1980s. In this speech, he argued against any harbored nostalgia or pride associated with the pre-WWII Nazi period and argued that Germans should see themselves as victims of Hitler's evil ideology. The idea that the German people were victims of WWII sounds a bit ridiculous to American ears, but part of rejecting the whole ideology of leading up to WWII was taking the view of Nazism as a poison that infected otherwise good people and viewing the deaths of Germans in the war not as heroic citizens protecting the Vaterland but rather as people slaughtered for a evil man's grand ideology. 'We thought it was about us, but it wasn't, Hitler didn't care about us, we were just pawns -- but worse, willing pawns.'

Much more than Das Boot or Stalingrad, Die Brucke seethes with anger about the poison of the youth ideology of Nazism. The story follows the class of seniors (17-year olds) in a small German town over the course of 3-4 days. The first 3/4 of the film establishes the group as boys -- making the initial awkward moves toward young manhood. We see them working on a science project with their teacher after school, we see them playing war, and we see them looking for treasures around by the river. But we also see them beginning to deal with adult issues. One boy has a crush on his housekeeper and flies into a rage on discovering his father in bed with her. This scene is quite comical because the boy sees himself as a man who the woman should be attracted to, while the woman sees him as a child. Another boy is trying to assume the role of man of the house at home (his father was killed in the war), but again we see the disconnect between his view of himself as a man versus the reality that he is obviously still a boy.

When the boys then receive their draft papers, it is not a surprise that they are all pumped up to go to war and defend the Vaterland. Their teacher makes impassioned pleas to the local commander to not send them to the front and argues that the ideology of "Fuhrer, Vaterland, and the hero's death" has betrayed the German people. The pleas fall on deaf ears, but fortunately for the boys, the officers are not reckless. Untrained, the boys would be useless at the front so they are sent off with an older soldier to keep them out of trouble to an obscure and utterly unimportant bridge. When their minder is unavoidably detained, the boys take it upon themselves to engage the enemy. These final scenes are a searing, searing indictment of the glorification of war and the waste of human life in the final days of WWII.

Trailer:

Notes: This video is difficult to find. I rented it from Scarecrow Video in Seattle. The translation not great. It captures the basic meaning of what they are saying in German, but that's it. However, the movie is still very powerful.

Sztálin menyasszonya (Stalin’s Bride) * *

2006-05-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

Péter Bacsó is a Hungarian director who specializes in tragicomedies about social issues, especially issues concerning totalitarianism and an over-powerful police state. Two of his highly-regarded films are Te rongyos élet (Oh, Bloody Life, 1983) and A Tanú (The Witness, 1969), a satirical anti-Stalin film that was banned for 9 years. He particularly writes films about life under totalitarianism. Peter Bacso: "Our [meaning he and his screenwriter] films always go back to the 50's, because our greatest problem is to not return to what we were in that era. It's our responsibility to speak in cinema of things we can't say in politics or science."

The summary of this film on the DVD cover distributed by Facets is “A young, maligned woman, nicknamed Stalin's Bride, by the cruel townsfolk, is taken away by the authorities thanks to her nickname. She gets her just desserts, though, when she returns to town to face her tormenters.” This doesn’t even begin to describe this movie. Did they watch the film or know anything about Bacso’s films? This movie is set in 1937 in the Ukraine, during and a few years after the forced collectivization of the peasants. The movie opens as peasants are turning in their private property – for the “state”. A man, Zorka, gives up his prize racehorse. The man leading the horse into the train begins to beat the horse, and after an altercation, Zorka knifes and presumably kills the man. As he is being led away, a dazed woman dressed in a burlap bag is found in the train.

Paranya. That is what she is called. Paranya has the intelligence and innocent outlook on life of a toddler. She takes up residence in the town, and we see her as she wanders about, playing with the children, scrounging for food, chasing the geese, and occasionally being frightened and harassed by some young men in the village. Nonetheless, the villagers generally take care of her, so it is not an entirely cruel relationship. But one day, things begin to spiral out of control when Piranya calls Stalin her fiancée. She is being tormented by the village bullies again, and runs to a picture of Stalin, and cries out ‘Stalin protect me! Stalin, my fiancée!’ A policeman overhears this, and by the time his report gets to headquarters, Paranya is arrested and turned over to the secret police because...well...you can't take chances when your head is on the line. The secret policeman who interrogates her is a bit insecure in his position, and he can't afford to take any chances. She is a capitalist spy(@!?), and he will not let her trick him. She is tortured in order to force her to speak and reveal her mission. Since she can speak all of five words, this is simply not possible. Yet, they cruelly torture her nonetheless. When she is finally released back to the village, she is traumatized and when she sees something that reminds her of torture, she yells out uncontrollably the words they said to her while in jail, “Spy! Take her away. Spy! Spy!” The authorities take these outbursts seriously, and slowly random townfolk are arrested. In the end Zorka and Paranya – these two souls irreversibly damaged by the cruelty of the State -- are reunited in a sad conclusion.

The movie is about the destruction of people by a cruel and capricious State, a State that is so paranoid that it tortures an innocent and obviously simple woman. It unable for a second to see common sense.

My personal thoughts
This movie was painful to watch. Although the women villagers generally take care of Paranya, she is cruelly teased by the young men and that is hard to watch. Her torture in jail is also difficult, although it is not as explicit and ‘in your face’ as it could be. The movie also suffers from a variety of issues. The actress playing Paranya was ok, but I was aware that she was an actress. There subplot involving Zorka is either weak or its playing on some cultural reference (like some stock Russian peasant stereotype) that I couldn’t decipher. He kills a man early on, but later he is played as a "lost soul" (am I missing something? Looked to me like he murdered someone in plain view of the whole town...).

I wanted to see the film because I’m into eastern European films that explore the personal aspects of the political tragedies of the 20th century: WWI, WWII, and occupation and totalitarianism. Hungarian directors are known for making philosophical films and reflective films that try to make sense of this experience. So I pretty much had to see this film, especially given Bacso’s other films on this topic (The Witness, Oh Bloody Life). But I didn’t really like Stalin’s Bride much as a film. I was aware too much of the acting. I can’t put my finger on it, but it didn’t feel like these were pre-WWII Ukrainians. Maybe the fact that they were speaking Hungarian….but of course this was made for the home market, so of course they would speak Hungarian. Or perhaps it’s that it was trying too hard to make a statement, and I don’t like films that try to do that – regardless of how much I agree with the statement. On the other hand, I respect Bacso films for tackling difficult social issues that most directors avoid, and for basically throwing the injustice in your face. This film is about collectivization and the paranoid police state, but his films tackle a variety of social issues.

Bottom Line: I don’t personally know anyone who would want to see this film. But if you have any of the following highly esoteric interests, I would recommend it:
1. Hungarian film, but this should definitely not be your entry in to that country’s cinema.
2. Anti-torture films (think the anti-war verite genre but different). The torture is not explicit.
3. Eastern European popular reflections on life under communism/totalitarianism/collectivism.
4. The films of Peter Bacso.
If you don’t have any of these interests, then it’s difficult for me to imagine why you would watch it. There are more entertaining satires of totalitarianism from Eastern Europe that come to mind: Zert (The Joke) and O slavnosti a hostech (Report on the Party and Guests, 1966).

Rented from Netflix.
My epinions review of Stalin's Bride.

How Arnold Won the West * *

2006-04-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

How Arnold Won the West is a documentary about the recall vote in California that ousted Govenor Gray Davis a month after he had been elected to his 2nd term. It is an often hilarious look at the spectacle of this highly unusual election in a state that by itself has one of the largest economies in the world. The recall vote came about because of an obscure law in California that allowed a recall with enough signatures. After the Republicans lost to Davis, a rich Republican senator -- who made and makes his fortune on the ViperKing, a car alarm -- put up about 1 1/2 million to get the signatures. And the recall was started. The Democrats in this film spend a lot of time whining about the injustice of this senator buying the signatures, even Bill Clinton makes a speech about political leaders never being able to make hard decisions if they faced recalls -- which he knows is B.S. since most of the world's democracies are parlimentary and under that system leaders always are under threat of a no confidence vote.

There is no primary and anyone can enter the race. 135 candidates do. Many of these are real characters (that includes Arnold BTW). The best is the adult movie star -- she is campy, witty, funny, irreverent and completely uninhibited (there is nudity in unexpected places in the documentary; I'm serious, she is completely uninhibited). In fact, she and Arnold seem to be birds of a feather (that's not meant as an underhanded insult to Arnold). The director and narrator, Cooke, is biased towards Davis and her strident outrage at the recall (and that Arnold wouldn't talk with reporters) added yet another humorous character to the mix.

As a life-long Democrat, I was appalled by this film. Not because Arnold won. The Republicans ran a very intelligent campaign with a unified team effort. It was optimized to WIN. They put forth a candidate with the best options of winning, and importantly other good Republicans candidates withdrew. After settling on a candidate, they ran an optimal campaign. The Democrats come across, first as a bunch of boring ideologues. Gray Davis is dull, even his wife says so in a speech, no less. That someone with zero charisma could get elected is a true testament to the power of the Democratic party machine in California. Mainly the Democrats in this film seem to whine. Even as a Democrat, I felt like "Please lose already, you are really annoying and I'd rather vote for the adult porn star." This film captures one of the big problems with the Democratic party, in my opinion. The people behind the scenes in power put forward candidates that can't even inspire the base. Come on nerdy, political-wonks don't win anymore. Get over it!

Goodbye Lenin * * * *

2006-04-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Lenin is a nostalgic tribute of a son, Alex, to his mother, a mother who was a idealist member of the East German communist party during the 1980s. Least 'member of the communist party' makes you think of grey suits in smokey rooms with severe expessions on their faces, the emphasis here is on idealistic. She worked energetically with the Young Pioneers and with those who were at a disadvantage in society, as a choir director, and worked tirelessly in her community. For me though, this movie wasn't really about East German socialism or the fall of communism. It was about the love of Alex for his mother. The movie is about his nostalgia for his mother, using the comic story of the final 8 months of her life as the vehicle. For him the trappings of life in the socialist East Germany -- the spartan furniture, the blue scarfs of the Young Pioneers, the May Day parades, the cheesy, propaganda laden, East German news reports, all that -- remind him fondly of his mother even if he has no particularly fond feelings for life under communist rule.

Rather than getting caught up into sentamentality, the movie is a comedy of sorts. Or I should say it's comic. It's not really a comedy. I started crying about 5 minutes into the movie. It's not that it's sad exactly; it's that Alex loves his mother so much and really you'd have to be hard-hearted not to tear up in the scenes when he is sitting at her hospital bed. His mother has had a heart-attack and she must be protected from excitement. She happened to lay in a coma during the entire fall of communism in East Germany and the dismantling of the Berlin wall. He decides that she couldn't take knowing that the ideal of socialism, to which she was so devoted, had been defeated by capitalism. So he comes up with a scheme of creating a little East German world (the bedroom in which she is bed-ridden) for her. As you might imagine, this becomes rather difficult and he faces all sorts of comic challenges -- uh oh, how to explain the Coke-a-cola banner that is unfurled on a building visible outside her window!

Like LoveFilm, which I also recently saw, this movie highlights the cruelty of the Iron Curtain and the effect of escape to the West on those left behind. Alex's father escapes to the West when Alex is about 10 years old and his father never returns (obviously he can't). The early scenes of young Alex hugging and crying on the shoulder of his depressed mother had me working the Kleenex box. The real cruelty of what happened doesn't emerge till much later in the film, when Alex's mother finally talks with her kids about the circumstances surrounding their father's emigration.

In summary, this is a wonderful film about love, family, and the fall of communism.

Szerelmesfilm (LoveFilm) * * * *

2006-04-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

Szerelmesfilm is a 1970s movie from the Hungarian director Istvan Szabo about two childhood friends, later teenage sweethearts, who are separated when Kata, the woman, emigrates to France after the 1956 Hungarian Uprising while Jancsi, the man, stays in Budapest. Of course, in this time, travel to the West was not permitted and it is ten years until he gets permission to visit her in France. The movie is about his visit and trying to sort out his childhood/teenage memories of Kata.

Although a small intimate story, it is ultimately about the generation born in the mid-1930s behind the Iron Curtain. They were children during WWII and grew up in upheaval and tragedy, they were young adults in the Communist era and experienced both the revolts and the resultant oppression, and finally they lived with the disappearances. People had to emigrate in complete secrecy at considerable personal risk. People would wake up one morning and their best friend or brother or aunt would be gone. And they couldn't come back. I suppose anytime that a group of people go through difficult times together, they form a special bond and are left with a feeling that others can't quite understand them. It's a kind of nostalgia -- although we often use that word for pleasant memories. Here it is a nostalgia driven by potent memories and one craves those who were there and went through the same things.

LoveFilm is largely a montage of memories. As Jancsi travels to France and visits with Kata, things he sees remind him of things in his past or memories just jump to mind. This is done very cleverly, and although it's a little muddled at times like memories are wont to be, it's engaging. To me, this felt just like the way memories are – triggered by something one sees or hears or smells, and some memories continually are repeated. Also one latches onto certain images – for Jancsi it is the image of the green backpacks he and Kata wore when they would go down to the cellar during the bombing raids. The two childhood actors that play Joza and Kata are precious and perfectly cast. The two kids get up to some funny antics, and there is a painful for them, but funny to watch, scene where there is a trial of the two by their Young Pioneers troop. They are accused of a) kissing and b) loving each other more than the troop.

Kata and Jancsi with the fish, learning to be doctors.

I recommend it to anyone who
a) enjoys love stories and is looking for something a little different.
b) likes stories about heartwarming kids, such as My Life as a Dog or Kolya.
c) is connected to someone who immigrated – especially someone from this generation.
d) and finally it’s a must see for fans of director Istvan Szabo (Being Julia, Taking Sides, Sunshine, Mephisto)

My epinions review of LoveFilm.

Ucho (The Ear) * * *

2006-04-08T20:37:00.000-07:00

1970, Czechoslovakia. A man and his wife are returning home after a late party. They discover that neither has the house keys. They argue. He finally climbs over the garden wall and breaks into the house. What begins as an irritating hassle, evolves into a story of suspicion and panic when they realize that someone has been in the house. Flashbacks to the social gathering earlier that evening piece together the reason for the panic. The man is a high level member of the Communist party. His boss, a minister, had been arrested that very evening by the secret police; a victim of the 'shoot the messenger' reaction when he turned in his report on brickyard closures. As for the couple, while the panic sets in, a picture emerges of a family living precariously in the peak of communist luxury(*) but in an atmosphere of fear within a political world that capriciously promotes people, or strikes them down at will. They assume as a given that their house is bugged and refer often to "The Ear" -- they argue in the bathroom where they can turn on the water and make love on the floor in the kitchen which they calculate is less likely to be bugged than their bedroom. The movie is the story of one psychologically harrowing night, combined with flashbacks to key conversations at the earlier social gathering, as the man tries to sort out what's happening and whether he to is to be picked up and dragged away. Random memories of remarks and incidents become full of meaning and foreboding. Claustrophobic uncertainty builds throughout the movie, and film eventually culminates in an unexpected twist.

Behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War years, moviemaking like all of media was heavily censored by The State. Thus there are few films about the realities of life in the Soviet-controlled socialist countries -- for the obvious reason that within the Eastern bloc, such films could not be made, and outside the Eastern bloc, such topics would not be marketable. But during the 1960s in Czechoslovakia, the director/writer team of Karel Kachyna/Jan Prochazka started making films that pushed the boundaries of what was allowable. They made films that were pessimistic when films had to be optimistic by strict party demands. They followed characters that were not supposed to even exist in socialist Czechoslovakia, such as prostitutes and alcoholics. They told stories involving the dark side of agricultural collectivism and even of WWII partisans. Many of their films were banned upon release. But the miraculous fact that these films were allowed to be completed at all was not so much the result of the easing of the political climate in the mid-1960s, but rather of the fact that ironically Jan Prochazka was an influential member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He even became a confidante of sorts for the back-then Czechoslovak president Antonin Novotny, in the latter's difficult relations with the rising guild of Czech writers and filmmakers. During the last of 1960s, many reformers like Prochazka had moved upwards in the levels of Czechoslovak society, within and without the Communist Party, and it even seems that the 1968 reform era of Prague Sprign owes in part its existence to Jan Prochazka.

In Ucho, Kachyna/Prochazka point the lens straight at the Communist Party and its leaders. Party members are generally scheming ambitious bullies and the few true idealists who spout about 'socialist principles' seem to be bitter caricatures. The president of the country and the head of its Communist Party is a scary combination of power and stupidity. At one point he says, "Sometimes I even think to myself: 'I don't know anything about any of this.' But then I think: 'I need to make a decision; we can not defeat imperialism by being indecisive.' So I make the decision. And you know, I then tell myself: 'You made a good decision!'" The audience nods and smiles vigorously, 'Comrade is such a good leader!'. Indeed, this film is so scathing towards the Communist Party that it seems unlikely it would have been allowed even in the thawing climate of early 1968.

But this movie was not made in 1968. It was made in 1969/1970 after the Prague Spring was crushed by the "Armies of the Brotherly Nations" (the Warsaw Pact) to protect Czech socialism from counter-revolution. In the aftermath, the Communist Party was purged of reformers -- such as Prochazka. This film is the story of one night during which one of these reform-minded ministers (the man's boss) is purged. "The Ear" was immediately banned on it's release, and Jan Prochazka was banned from further work and died a year later. After his death, use of his unfilmed screenplays was forbidden. "The Ear" was released 20 years later in 1989, after the Velvet Revolution overthrew communism in Czechoslovakia. It stands as a true insider's view of the Community Party behind the Iron Curtain and the associated 'priviledged' life of those as the top of it.

(*) Life for regular people (meaning not in the communist elite) was very spartan behind the Iron Curtain. The shelves in grocery stores were invariably bare. To Western eyes, the life of this couple will appear average middle class. But to Czechoslovaks in 1970, the luxuries that are seen in the film -- roast beef, commercial liquers rather than the homegrown slivovice -- would have been unheard of and not to mention galling.

Rented from Scarecrow Video.
My epinions review of Ucho.

Heimat (episode 2 & 3)

2006-04-08T20:19:00.000-07:00

Episode 1 was rather artsy -- with most of the filming in black and white but with color emerging for particularly strong memories or moments. One definitely had the feeling in episode 1 that these were memories and somewhat disconnected memories at that, although they were organized in time. In episode 2, the style was a bit more traditional and recognizeable.

We are now clearly seeing the story of the Simon family. Maria is raising her 2 sons and haunted by Paul's sudden and mysterious departure. There are long side stories of key family members. Paul's brother, Edward, who has a lung ailment, goes to Berlin for surgery, and while recovering, gets picked up by a prostitute who he eventually marries. It not entirely clear is he is ever fully aware of her occupation; he's a simple fellow. In Berlin, we see the rise of the Nazi party, but it is background. Edward returns home and joins the Nazi party, but he is not interested in politics. It's the thing to do; it's the way to move up in the world, and he doesn't seem to think beyond that. Grandma goes to visit her brother in a far off village. Her first night, her nephew, a Marxist, is picked up for re-education and driven away in a truck. The nephew was the only adult with a job in the family, so Grandma stays 3 months to help and returns to the Simon home with her grand niece in tow. She doesn't say what happened, just that she couldn't leave the child "in those conditions". Of all the family, Grandma is the one unnerved by the Nazi's and the soldier culture. She tells her grandson not to wear the Hitler Jugend uniform, tells him that he is no soldier, that they'll say he has a bad heart.

But the overall feel of episode 2 is upbeat. Life is getting better. The episode closes with a view of the street in front of the Simon house as workers are putting up electrical poles. Electricity is coming to the village. Life is getting better -- after the hard 1920s.

Episode 3 is a continuation of the same. Life is getting better. Actually episode 3 was a little boring as it focused on Eduard (and his wife), who is the brother-in-law of Maria.

Heimat episodes 4, 5 and 6

Stalingrad (1992) * * * *

2006-03-24T23:44:00.000-08:00

This is my review of the movie Stalingrad; my review of Anthony Beevor's book is here Stalingrad: the fateful siege. If you are interested in the film, I highly recommend the book too. It is one of the best historical books on the Eastern Front.

(Link to the Stalingrad DVD at Amazon)
Stalingrad (now Volgograd) lies on the Volga River in southern Russia. It was a major transit point for oil and supplies for the Russian army in World War II, and here the Russian and German armies fought the deadliest battle in WWII, if not in human history. The final defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad marked the turning of the war on the Eastern front. Both sides sought to win regardless of the cost, with wanton disregard for civilian and military life. Stalin went so far as to forbid civilians from fleeing the city in order to deepen the resolve of the city’s defenders. Both sides forbid retreat by the soldiers, on the threat of immediate execution. The final tally of dead from this battle is incomprehensible. On the German side, some ¾ of a million troops were involved and basically all were killed or wounded, except some 6,000 who were taken POWs and managed to survive Siberian work camps. On the Russian side, some 1 ¾ million troops were involved and about half were killed or wounded. To put things in perspective, the number of soldiers killed in the 199 days of the battle of Stalingrad well exceed all American military deaths in WWI, WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined. Estimates place the total number killed or wounded, military plus civilian, at 1 ½ to 2 million people.

The film follows a company of German soldiers, storm troopers, who have just finished fighting in Africa and are sent to the battle for Stalingrad. The film focuses on a group of about 6 of these men from this company (well, the core focus group starts larger but their numbers keep getting smaller). We see them as they arrive in the midst of the battle. They step off the train into hell, walking past a long line of severely wounded men and Russian POWs being beaten to death. Less than an hour after their arrival, they are in intense close urban combat. I cannot say how realistic these scenes are, but they are certainty some of the most gripping that I have watched. But they are not heroic pictures of combat. It’s ugly, scary and men soil their pants. As the movie goes on we follow this core group through battles, an overly harsh punishment involving loss of rank and work on mine removal, the deepening chaos of the German army as they are surrounded, desperate battles against the Russian tanks, and finally the collapse of the German army in Stalingrad.

I’m not really into war-movies. There is generally far too much testosterone involved for my liking. But I do spend a bit of time in Central Europe and I am intrigued by differences in the social and political perspectives of Americans versus Europeans, and especially differences in views about war. Two incredibly bloody wars (WWI and WWII) were fought on European soil. The war was especially destructive to the populations in Central and Eastern Europe. The percent of the total population killed in WWII was approximately 10% across Central & Eastern Europe, with Poland and the Soviet Union on the high end with ca 15% of the population killed, Germany in the middle at 10% of the population killed and Czechoslovakia on the low end with 2.5% killed. In contrast outside of Central & Eastern Europe (UK, France, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Spain, etc), approximately 1% of the population was killed with France on the high end at 1.3%. So I wanted to watch the film to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of war on this region.

I had approached this film with some trepidation since other reviews had said that it is extremely graphic. I had expected close ups of limbs being blow off and intestines hanging out. However, relative to Saving Private Ryan and Downfall (which I also saw recently), I did not find it particularly gruesome. Let me clarify that, this is a film that attempts to show a deadly battle in a realistic light. There is a lot of blood. Men get limbs blown off. There are dead bodies everywhere. But I did not find the gore gratuitous. For example, there are no close-ups of men with their faces half blown off or intestines hanging out. Although I winced in many places, there was no scene like the beach landing in Saving Private Ryan that I that I felt ill watching.

One of the things that struck me in Stalingrad was the portrayal of the German officers as cruel to the German soldiers. Traitors (those that try to escape by injuring themselves) are summarily executed. A high level officer hoards a warehouse of food while the soldiers starve. We see a scene where dead soldiers are being burned in a big bon fire. The camera lingers for a moment as a dead soldier is thrown onto the burning stack. A group of soldiers threaten a doctor to get care for their friend and are court-marshaled and sent to work on land mine removal. Much like in Downfall, there is a sense that the common solider is there simply to be slaughtered. Individual life is not valued, and soldiers have meaning only in aggregate as little flags that are moved around a map as a division. However, in Downfall this sense of the soldier as mere cannon-fodder comes mainly from Hitler and the generals find this view appalling, whereas in Stalingrad there are high-level generals on the ground with this attitude. In fact, one of the generals in Stalingrad is so nasty, cruel and cowardly, he seems to have been cast from Indian Jones and the Lost Ark. In Downfall, this is not the case, the generals are uniformly professional, courageous and dedicated to the troops. Nonetheless, one detects, like in Downfall, a seething anger about WWII and about the enormous casualties of young German men. Towards the end, one soldier berates an officer who objects that "I'm not a Nazi", that he is worse than a Nazi because he went along with them even knowing how it was going to end.

Stalingrad is considered one of the great anti-war films about WWII. It is anti-war in that it does not glamorize war and exposes the ludicrousness of the Reich propaganda about “Fuhrer, Volk, Vaterland, and the hero’s death”. The would-be German hero dies with soiled pants, screaming from his shredded legs – just like the Russian hero dying while crying for his mother. It is a bitter picture of war. Although Stalingrad is well-regarded for its general realism, it seems to take some liberties by using protagonists that are curiously not racists. The common German view of Slavs in this period was decidedly racist (see for the documentary Mein Krieg), and if one believes the footage from Mein Krieg and the Soviet movies on the Eastern front, Germans were regularly killing civilians – who they regarded as sub-humans and whores. So the scene where the soldiers are stunned that they are ordered to kill civilians who are collaborating with the Russian army seems unbelievable. And that the German officer would defend the Russian boy, who was obviously helping the Russian soldiers in an earlier fight, is also implausible.

Nonetheless, I personally found Stalingrad to be a deeply moving movie, and overall, I recommend it to anyone who liked movies like Das Boot, Downfall or Saving Private Ryan. This is no "pound the chest" war movie. There is no glory in this war-film. After watching it I sat on the bed of my sleeping young son for a long time, and almost cried imagining the millions of mothers that had to send their sons to war, never to return.

To see reviews of other movies and books on the Eastern Front, click here: Eastern Front. Other WWII reviews can be found by clicking the tags in the right navbar.
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Rented from Netflix.
My epinions review of Stalingrad.

Heimat (episode 1)

2006-03-17T12:54:00.000-08:00

Heimat is sort of the German equivalent of the 1980s series Roots. It is a 16-hour series following a family from 1919 to 1980 in a small village, Schabbach, near the French/German border. Episode 1 opens as Paul Simon, the eldest son of the Simon family, is returning home from WWI. He walks 6 days from France and we see him as he comes over the rise and sees home, "heimat". Heimat is a word that that encompasses all those warm feelings of home, tradition, and land associated with families that live in one place, esp. one village or farm, for generation upon generation -- i.e. not something that is so common in the U.S. anymore.

We watch Paul as he tries to reassimilate into village and family life. The sense of watching a dream or a memory is very strong in this series. Much of the filming is in black-and-white, but when the memory is particularly strong, color fades in. Paul falls in love, but with a woman who is a bit of an outsider in the village. Perhaps the attraction is that he too feels like an outsider even though he is an insider. She leaves; he stays. In the end he marries Maria, the daughter of the village mayor, and they have 2 sons. Then one day, he just leaves. He walks out the door and doesn't look back. Episode 1 is thus sets the background for the next 5 episodes, where we follow the now single-mother Maria as she raises her sons through tumultuous 30s and 40s, followed by decades of rapid societal change through the 50s,60s and 70s.

This was the first episode for me, and I won't be able to judge what I think until I'm farther in. Even so, I can say that this is not a series for everyone. It's a must see for modern European history buffs, those interested in or living in Germany, and WWII history buffs, but if you are not interested in any of those things, it's hard for me to imagine why you would watch this. Personally, I'm very interested in the roots of WWII and in the different societal and political forces that have shaped the European versus American world-view, so it's fascinating for me although the filming style seems a bit more artsy than necessary.

Heimat episodes 2 & 3

The Burbs * * *

2006-03-01T00:51:00.000-08:00

The yard is unmowed, the windows shuttered, garbage stacked on the porch, and you never ever see them go in or out. Yes, it's the weird, slightly creepy, neighbors. Every neighborhood has a set. Anyone with an over-active imagination has wondered what they are up to. Hmm, maybe they are running a drug house. Then again maybe, just maybe, they are serial killers burying their victims in the backyard. This is a ludicrous and absolutely hilarious movie about what happens when a few neighbors get a little too suspicious of the odd folks living next door and let their over-active imaginations get the better of them.

The five main actors do a great job with their characters. Most of the time, they all play their characters straight, and you will laugh because you have probably met people a little like them. Maybe even you will recognize some of them as your neighbors. There is the Vietnam vet who has all the 'toys' and gets a little trigger-happy when his neighbor's dog soils his lawn. There is the fellow who really believes that his neighbors are part of a demonic cult. There is the buddy-buddy neighbor that comes to visit unannounced at breakfast and helps himself to everything including the leftovers from the night before. There is the dottering old fellow -- who lets his poodle 'fertilize' everyone's lawn. There is the straight guy (Hanks) who thinks his neighbors are weird, but would rather just not think about them.

I picked this up fully expecting another dud that I would have to peruse with judicious use of the fast-forward button. I was very wrong! Despite being stupid, really quite stupid with an inane plot, I nonetheless found myself laughing until my stomach hurt in many places. This is slapstick humor a little in the Coen brothers tradition, but without the vulgarity. So if you don't like that kind of humor, for example you didn't laugh during say 'Something About Mary' then you ought to stay clear of this. But if you do, this would be a fun movie to rent with friends for a night of light and meaningless comedy.

Available on Netflix and your local video store.

The Man with One Red Shoe *

2006-02-27T10:03:00.000-08:00

Well, unbelievably this was worse than Volunteers. I really did not think Tom Hanks could have been in something more inane than that, alas I was wrong. The Man with One Red Shoe is a very weak comedy based on the idea of a FBI chief who is trying to be ousted by a rival. The rival successfully implicated the chief in a cocaine scheme, and now the chief tries to set his rival on a wild-goose chase. The idea is to have the rival think there is some witness who is going to spill the beans at a Senate hearing and vindicate the chief while also implicating the rival. Ok, it's weak. Anyhow, they pick this 'witness' randomly from people coming out of the Wash DC airport, and they pick a violinist with the Wash DC symphony (that's Hanks). Various weak slap-stick comedic events ensue as the rival and his cronies try to figure out what the violinist knows. That's it.

I don't suggest you see this, but Star Wars fans may find it amusing that one of the supporting actresses (Carrie Fisher) in this movie was Princess Leia in the original Star War movies. Here she wears a leopard skimpy bikni and tries to seduce the violinist (Hanks) into a 'Jane and Tarzan' sexual tryst (did I mention the screenplay is weak?). The only other actor I recognized was Dabney Coleman who plays Hanks father in 'You've Got Mail'. Coleman is a sucessfull B-grade actor, but I'm surprised that in his 40+ year career, he never broke out of B-grade movies and TV. As for Hanks in this movie, well, watching this performance, I am amazed that over the next 20 years he transformed himself into the top-grossing US actor. There is nothing in this movie to suggest the Oscar worthy performances in Gumps, Philidelphia or Castaway.

Volunteers *

2006-02-13T11:41:00.000-08:00

I thought that Splash would be the bottom of the barrel for my Hanks retrospective viewing, but I was wrong. Volunteers marked a new low. In Volunteers, Hanks plays an upper-crust NE yankee, newly-minted Yale grad who gets in some gambling trouble (to the tune of $26,000). When Dad refuses to bale him out, he switches places with his roommate who was just about to get on a plane to Thailand with the Peace Corps. He heads off to Thailand with a gung-civil engineer (John Candy) and a sincere nurse (Rita Wilson). Now, I find John Candy funny even though his brand of slap-stick humor is not really my type, and I like Rita Wilson a lot (she plays Sam's sister in Sleepless in Seattle). In my opinion, the few funny bits in this film were given to Candy and Wilson. But Candy and Wilson get a lot less play in this comedy than Hanks, and I'm afraid that Hanks' character just isn't funny. I think Hanks does better playing the straight-guy in a comedy (Splash, Big, Sleepless in Seattle) than playing the comedic character (Volunteers, Ladykillers, the Terminal). On top of that, Hanks is supposed to affect an upper-crust NE accent, and he doesn't pull it off. Interestingly, the only other films that I've seen where Hanks does an accent is the Terminal and Ladykillers, and his accents are atrocious there too.

Splash *

2006-02-03T15:11:00.000-08:00

More B-grade Tom Hanks viewing. This one is about an over-worked New Yorker, who as a child was rescued from drowning by a mermaid-child. Fast forward 20 years, he falls over board again (different boat) and the same mermaid saves him (again). She decides to leave the water (for 3 days) and together they find true love of sorts.

This movie was Tom Hanks' first big break -- the first movie where he played the lead. It is also the start of a series of films where Tom Hanks played comic characters that were pretty much stamped out of the same mold. There's a lot of similarities between the way he plays the lead here in Splash (1984) and his character in Big (1988) and in Joe Versus the Volcano (1990). By 1993 and Sleepless in Seattle, he started acting uniquely for different roles. What did I think of the movie? I found it fairly painful although my 8-year old liked it very much.

Big * * *

2006-01-31T08:27:00.000-08:00

We think of Tom Hanks now as a dramatic actor, but back in the 1980s when he started, he was almost strictly a comedic actor. He did a long string of entertaining, but not terribly memorable, comedies: Splash, Bachelor Party, Volunteers, Money Pit, and the list goes on. Big is one of his most memorable and critically-received comedies in this era. Wikipedia even says that it is still considered the gold standard for the "child trapped in an adult body" movie. Hmm, are there really that many movies of that type....Probably everyone knows the plot: kid wishes he was Big, gets his wish, has adventures being an adult, and then....well, you'll have to see the movie. For me, Big holds a special place. It is the movie after which back in the 80s, I decided that "You know, I really don't like Tom Hanks as an actor. He's a curly fluff-head." I think it was not until Saving Private Ryan that I begrudgingly changed my mind. So I rewatched Big in 2006 with some curiosity.

Well, you know, Big was fun. Mindless fun, but fun. Tom Hanks does do a great job of being a 12-year old in a 30+ year-old body, and the film has some good scenes. I now want a trampoline in my house. But you know what struck me most.... How that woman responded after finding out she'd been having intimate relations with a 12-year old (in a 30-year old body, but whatever). Do you remember that scene in Friends where Monica has a fling with a young fellow and then finds out he's like 16 and in high school. She has the normal reaction of a pushing 30 woman to this situation: "Ick, ack, help get me the memory-modifier. I need to erase this memory. Ug, this is so icky!" The woman in Big at least stops the relationship, whew, but then treats him like an aunt -- gazing fondly and kissing him on the cheek. This is not normal. I couldn't help thinking that woman must be a pedophile.

I know, you're rolling your eyes. This is a movie, a fantasy. The plot is based on a boy that magically transforms into a man's body, and you have problems with the woman's response not being realistic?! Yeah, yeah, I know this is every adolescent male's fantasy. It's just that his adolescent fantasy translates into 5-10 years of incarceration and eternal damnation.

MONICA: Ethan, focus. How could you not tell me?
ETHAN: Well, you never told me how old you were.
MONICA: Well, that´s different. My lie didn´t make one of us a felon in 48 states. What were you thinking?
ETHAN: I wasn´t thinking. I was too busy fallin'--
MONICA: Don´t say it.
ETHAN: --in love with you.
MONICA: Really?
ETHAN: Sorry.
MONICA: Well, fall out of it. You know, you shouldn´t even be here, it´s a school night. Oh god, oh god. I´m like those women that you see with shiny guys like Chad. I´m Joan Collins.

Forrest Gump * * * *

2006-01-30T20:34:00.000-08:00

I avoided seeing this film for many years. In large part because of that oft-repeated line, "Life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get."[1] Any movie with a syrupy tag-line like that was certainly a movie I would hate. I was wrong. I liked this movie a lot. Somehow it's a little like the song "American Pie" -- it distills an American generation. Robert Zemekis, the director, said that he made the film for his generation (baby boomers). He figured that no one born after 1960/70 would like this movie, and no one outside of the U.S. would either. Funny thing is, this movie was hugely popular with non-baby boomers and oversees [although it was criticized by movie reviewers for glorifying a certain stereotypical American niavete]. I'm kind of with Zemekis on this though. Why do people like this movie? I can't even quite say why I liked it so much.

Tom Hanks has been asked in various interviews what this movie is about [for example on the Castaway DVD]. He has said it's a fairytale of sorts, but he doesn't know what it's about. If the main actor can't say what it's about, far be it from me to try. It follows a curiously charismatic idiot savant through the 1960,70s and 80s and major events of that generation -- those events for which everyone knows where they were when it happened (like when Kennedy was shot). Beyond that I surely can't say what it's about. I will say the ensemble cast is superb. Hanks definitely deserved the Oscar for this performance, and I would love to see the outtakes for some of the 'how did he manage that' scenes -- like the one in Jennie's dorm room. I also liked the child actors. The boy who plays young Gump is perfect. That was his natural way of speaking, according to Zemekis (the director), and Hanks copied it to get the adult Gump's sing-song way of speaking. The DVD extras have some casting takes where the actors were reading lines in a studio, and Hanks doesn't have the Gump speech pattern yet in those.

[1] The movie is based on the novel, Forrest Gump. That "box of chocolates" tag-line is a rather liberal revision of the line in the book, "Being an idiot is no box of chocolates". I think we can safely assume the movie is not a faithful rendition of the novel.

Philidelphia* * *

2006-01-30T08:58:00.000-08:00

I was bruised and battered -- I couldn't tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable, to myself -- I saw my reflection
in a window and didn't know my own face
Oh brother are you gonna leave me
Wastin' away -- on the streets of Philadelphia
-- "Steets of Philadelphia" Bruce Springsteen
Click here to listen to the Philidelphia theme music

I suspect that Philidelphia is one of those films that everyone has heard of, but few have actually seen it. Why is this film even in the pop-culture consciousness? Well, here are my suspicions: a) Tom Hanks' Oscar acceptance speech, b) this was a very PC and very topical film at the time as it came out when AIDs was coming onto the national scene, and c) it was one of the first big Hollywood films starring a Big name (pun intended) on a gay couple. At the time, the story of a young lawyer fired because he has AIDs and successfully defended by a homophobic lawyer was a courageous bit of filmmaking, and Hanks taking on the role of a gay man in a film where he gets all cuddly with Julio Banderas (yes, that actor) was a courageous career move too. And yes, this film probably did some good at softening popular views about gay men with AIDs. So I think as a film making a social statement, it is very good, and yes I cried at the end.

Thing is, I tend to be very critical of films that make social statements, and I think that if you have an agenda it is very hard to do good, honest art and story-telling, which for me is at the core of great films in the dramatic genre. Philidelphia had an agenda and as such is full of too many compromises for me to not be critical. Some of the instances of Hollywoodification:

**The homophobia of the lawyer (Washington) defending Beckett (Hanks) is revealed as simply prejudice. By that I mean, he just didn't know any gay men or have any gay men close to him (friends, family). By defending Beckett and seeing his suffering, he loses the basis of his prejudice. I didn't buy that. This idea of people transforming from intolerance to tolerance so easily is a Hollywood plot crutch -- along with knights on white horses.

**In the plot, Beckett gets AIDs by going ONCE to a gay-porno theater and having an anonymous quickie. The 1980s were a hayday of promiscuity in the gay community and HIV-infection was highest in the bathhouse frequenting segment. So by choosing as the protagonist a man who was otherwise monogamous is both subtly misrepresentative and panders to a particular visciousness that was being pedelled on the AM-radio talk-shows: "all people with AIDs are promiscuous perverts and thus deserved what they got". This is a logical argument of the form: if A then B, if B then C therefore if A then C. Philidelphia countered the argument by saying it's not true that if A then B. But it never, never asks the viewer to question the fundamental and pernicious 'if B then C' argument.

**Beckett and his partner never kiss, nada. It's not that I feel any particular interest whatsoever in seeing such a scene, it's just that this was a major cop-out. Yet another example of softening the edges of this film.

**The scene where Beckett is holding and cuddling the baby is over the top. I felt like I was watching a propaganda film. Over the speakers: "You cannot get HIV by touching." Ok fine, fine, I got Reagan's brochure on AIDs.

I was in college in the 1980s in the San Francisco Bay area. The AIDs epidemic was a huge event in my young adulthood. I did not know anyone personally who died of AIDs at the time (although I learned later of men I knew at the time who did) and I don't even remember talking about it much with friends -- except maybe when Reagan sent out the AIDs brochure to every family in America. But I was certainly reading the weekly newspapers out of SF, and AIDs was a huge deal. I did feel like I was witnessing a human tragedy. It felt very real. It did not feel like an abstract news story.

I think this is why I feel angry that Philidelphia painted Beckett as monogamous with a loving long-term partner whom miraculously he didn't infect. By never challenging the viewer to question whether promiscuous homosexuality in any way deserves a death sentence, it is implicitly saying, let's cherry-pick the names off the AIDs-quilt.

Ok, that's my not sugar-coated and excessively critical review. I think it is as much a critique of Hollywood's protrayal of social issues as anything else.

Brokeback Mountain * * * * *

2006-01-28T09:30:00.000-08:00

Unless you have avoided the newspapers for the last month, you've probably heard of the "gay cowboy movie". Well, that tag-line is misleading. Whatever image that tag-line conjures up, it's definitely not what this movie is about. In fact, I'm not sure if I'd call the main characters "gay". I don't think I can characterize the main character, Ennis, in fact, since it seemed that Ennis loved Jack, not necessarily men. For Ennis, "love", "sex", "intimacy", "duty", "marriage", "gender-roles", "repression", and "confusion" were all bound together in such a confusing and contradictory ways. Like real-life, on some of the most important things in life, you might not really know how you feel and how you feel about thing is inconsistent with how you feel about another.

My view is that this is one of the best American movies to come out in the last few years. Like many of my friends, I put it up there with American Beauty and Mystic River. This movie is not a love story (in my view); it is a story about something that happens one summer (a tryst and emotional intimacy) between two young men and how that summer sends collateral damage throughout the rest of their lives and families. There are no easy answers, and the movie merely shows what happened in their lives (and with their wives) without suggesting what you should think about it. It is incredible story-telling and filmmaking, and most people end up pondering the story for days afterwards. I've talked with parents of friends who worried about the movie being sexually explicit. It's not, relative to other R-rated movies (like Shakespere in Love, say), and it's mainly male-female (except for one brief non-explicit scene).

Ladykillers * *

2006-01-12T11:58:00.000-08:00

Ok, I think this film has perhaps stopped my Tom Hanks run. This was quite painful. In the past, I have liked some of the Coen brother's films (Fargo, O' Brother Where Art Thou, Raising Arizona), but this one seemed pointless and uninspired. Part of the problem, for me, was that it was based on a previous story so there was little opportunity for the Coen brother's insprired plots. The plot was pretty simple: guy rents room to get access to cellar to dig hole to vault and steal money, and complications arise. What's funny about that? Also there were no inspired comic characters like the lead in Fargo and in O' Brother Where Art Thou. I suppose, Tom Hanks character could have been that, but he came across as a stock comic character in a B-grade Hollywood comedy. What I liked about some of the Coen brothers other characters in other movies is that they were hilarious, but were not acting funny. The whole incongruity of the character was funny without the actor being comic. Oh, there was a good bit in Ladykillers, the music. There is some great gospel music in the movie. Wow, black churches seem like a lot more fun than any white one I've been to.

Hanks' acting: The whole point of seeing these films has been to see how Hanks has changed his acting over time. Well, this was uninspired. His acting is solid; he's good at what he does, but there didn't seem to be anything special, mesmerizing, charismatic, whatever about this performance. He used a few of his characteristic mannerisms, specifically the eyebrow raise and the weak smile that he uses in comic films.

Castaway * * * *

2006-01-10T09:04:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite Hollywood movies (as opposed to an indie movie). It's actually different cinematically and makes you think about the curves life sends you -- but being a Hollywood movie is based on a big-name star, has some exciting action, and loads of CGI. The airplane crash scene is extra "WOW"; try not squirming on the edge of your seat during that! The plot is easy: Modern Man from Memphis crashes in a FedEx plane somewhere over the Pacific, survives on a tiny island for 4 years, then makes it back to Memphis and tries to figure out 'what now?'.

This is the second film where Zemekis explores the questions of 'Is life governed by destiny?' or 'Are we just a bunch of feathers buffetted by the erratic winds of chance?' (think opening credits of Forrest Gump, which he also directed). It is a type pop-culture nihilism:

From www.apologetics.org: "Nihilism is a pessimistic view of reality which results from "God is dead" thinking. In the words of Nietzsche, since there is no God, "there is no one to command, no one to obey, no one to transgress." Often, nihilists deny that life is meaningful or purposeful in any way, resulting in a sort of anarchistic worldview. As the French atheistic nihilist once said, "It matters not whether a man is a drunkard or a ruler of empires; in the end, both men will suffer the same fate" (Sartre). In the works of Franz Kafka and Albert Camus, nihilism is reduced to this sort of abusurdism as well, as they explore the themes of meaningless, despair, hopelessness, and the trivial nature of life itself."

In this film, like Forrest Gump, Zemekis seems to come down on the side of hopeful nihilism. We're just feathers, but that's not so bad. You make the best of what you have, and that's that. 'Why keep going?' There is no answer, and Zemekis doesn't offer one. You just keep going. You just do. But notice, there is no God, there is no grand destiny, order, rhyme or reason. As Chuck Nolan says at one point, 'I decided I just had to make it through each day, because perhaps tomorrow the tide might bring in something new.' The rest of this dialogue is a challenge to this idea; the idea of that there is something a little more hopeful than pure nihilism, but it would be a huge spoiler to put that dialogue here.

Much as I like Castaway, I tend to resist being moved by a Hollywood movie. I feel a little like I do with advertising. I feel compelled to resist the message since I know they are trying to manipulate me. That is, it's not honest art, it's purposely manipulative commerce. I'm supposed to be entertained not reflect on life. I was entertained. In fact, this is what I hate about Hollywood movies. Come on, say something honest about something, anything! Hmm, well that doesn't sell I'm sure. Soon I'll get over my entertainment break and go back to difficult subtitled movies.

I must share someone else's hilarious review of castaway. If you enjoy satire on many levels and are not put off by somewhat explicit humor, you'll probably find this funny, otherwise skip it: Castaway satire.

Catch Me if You Can * *

2006-01-10T08:43:00.000-08:00

Catch Me if You Can follows 6 years in the life of teen con-man, Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo Di Caprio), as he successfully pulls off posing as a airline pilot, emergency room doctor, and lawyer, supported financially by his real profession as the biggest check frauder of the era. The story focuses mainly on the cat-and-mouse chase between him and the FBI agent (Tom Hanks).

The story itself was ok, and the acting ok. I kind of believed Hanks as a nerdy FBI-agent, and I kind of believed Di Caprio as a emotionally-scarred but very charismatic and ballsy teen. But there is something wrong with the plot when a true edge-of-your-seat story doesn't get you on the edge of your seat. I never felt nervous wondering if he was going to pull of his latest caper and get away. I never felt sad by his life story. It was more like, 'oh, this is interesting'. The most interesting thing is that it is based on a true story. That in and of itself is incredible.

Of course, the only reason I saw this was my continuing quest to watch Tom Hanks films that I have avoided, and to see how he has worked to change himself into a character actor. In this movie, he's hidden behind nerdy 1960s thick rims, so he doesn't exactly look like Tom Hanks. There were only one or two places I noticed where he used distinctive mannerisms from earlier films. But to be honest, his role didn't really call for much acting and he just did his job, nothing more. I didn't get the feeling that his character was a real person. Actually, Di Caprio's acting surprised me. At least 25% of the time, his character seemed real. That was much more than I expected. He pulled off the scenes with his 'Dad' quite well. I still hate his acting though.

Tom Hanks reviews

2006-01-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

Tom Hanks is one of the few American actors that I like. Part of it is that I like character actors over 40, and I think there are relatively few good American character actors over 40. The few that there are seem to tend to specialize in playing psychos. I'm thinking DeNiro. He's a good character actor, but I just can't get into movies about people I would never want to meet, much less know, in real life. So anyhow I've been working through Tom Hanks films. This has been fun since he's been acting for 30 years+, so you can really see how his acting has changed over time. Try watching Big and then Castaway. That's a shock.

Here are the films I saw or re-watched recently.

*** repeatably watchable
**** well-loved by many or highly regarded
***** one of the top movies of the era
[classic] widely regarded as one of the best of the era

Big ***
Joe versus the Volcano **
Philidelphia *** [highly regarded]
Forrest Gump *****
Sleepless in Seattle *** [on many best romcom lists]
Saving Private Ryan [classic]
You've Got Mail **** [this film is on many 'best romcom' lists]
Apollo-13 ****
Castaway *****
Catch me if You Can **
Ladykillers **
The Terminal * [ug]
Splash *
Volunteers *
League of Their Own ***
The Man with One Red Shoe *
The 'Burbs ***
Nothing in Common * [very uneven]
Bonfire of the Vanities ** [only part I found interesting was Melaine Griffith's performance]

To see list
Road to Perdition
Band of Brothers

Seen but won't review
Green Mile [great movie, but I can't bring myself to see it a 2nd time or review it given the subject matter]

Joe versus the Volcano * * *

2006-01-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

I have been working through a few Tom Hanks films that I have actively avoided in the past. So I finally got around to watching Joe versus the Volcano. The plot is fairly simple: guy works at abysmal job, finds out he has a terminal illness ('brain cloud'), he get hired to go jump into a volcano (it's complicated), and he goes off to do that. That's about it really. Oh, wait he falls in love, too. Of course.

This film falls into the genre of over-the-top movie fairytale. It's meant to be unrealistic and cartoonish, and it beats you over the head with symbolism. To me this film did only a mediocre job of pulling this off this genre. The movie starts off firmly establishing the cartoon style with the grey masses marching into work: the 'Home of the Rectal Probe'. But the film did not maintain this style and visual starkness. About a third of the way in, it degenerates to standard B-minus grade camp. Part of the problem, I think was the casting of Tom Hanks. He just wasn't able to do 'cartoon' very convincingly. Too much of his 'everyman' screen persona came through and also he's got a lot of mannerisms that he used in Big, which I found annoyingly familar. Meg Ryan played 3 characters. You won't recognize her as the first two. I had to check the listing to believe that she was the first woman. In these first 2 roles, she's pretty good as cartoon comic characters. But the last character is stock "Meg Ryan playing the love-interest in a romantic comedy". I've seen this character in at least 5 films now. Boring. It was especially annoying since after the first 2 characters, one realizes that she can protray different characters.

Summary: I personally cannot imagine any reason for someone to see this movie except that they are interested in Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Even then, it seemed mostly interesting to see how Hanks has modified his acting over time. About 3 years after this film, he finally got rid of most of his early stock mannerisms -- something that anyone aiming to be a character actor has to do. But that said, there are lots of people who find deep meaning in this film, and this film has a cult following of sorts. People write essays on the symbolism of this film and make websites dedicated to this film -- I guess there are a lot of people who empathize with Joe's mind-numbing boring job and 'spiritual' awakening.

You've Got Mail * * * *

2006-01-06T01:37:00.000-08:00

[This is a post I wrote for epinions.com. I was playing around with fluffy writing. See, I don't just watch subtitled movies]

There’s something about falling in love through the written word, and nowadays that means e-mail. Ah, the way one does a happy little jig on discovering an e-mail from some particularly witty pen-pal – especially if romantic. The way one will write sappy, reflective things one would never say face-to-face. The way one gets wrapped around a particular turn of phrase. "You’re right, I hear nothing. Nothing. ‘Not a sound on the city streets just the beat of my own heart’. I think that’s how it goes." Says a giddy Joe quoting a line from Shopgirl’s e-mail. You've Got Mail is a rom-com about all that – with complications thrown on top. Two people, Kathleen and Joe, fall in love through writing each other anonymously on the internet, while in real life, they are horrid to each other on account of Joe (Tom Hanks) being the owner of a big chain bookstore that is putting Kathleen (Meg Ryan) and her little independent bookstore out of business. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have a lot of chemistry in this film -- both together and alone. Even watching them typing on a laptop is a joy here. However, this film is not for everyone. People tend to fall into two distinct camps: they adore it or they despise it.

Here is an easy test to determine if you will despise this movie:

(Yes/No) Did you like Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle? Liking him in Saving Private Ryan and the Green Mile doesn't count. You need to have liked him in a romantic comedy.
(Yes/No) Do you like Meg Ryan?
(Yes/No) Do you like romantic comedies?

If you answered No to any of these, you might want to reconsider watching this, unless of course you fell in love on-line, in which case it might make you feel sentimental enough to overcome your natural dislike.

However, if you answered Yes to all three questions, then you will likely ADORE 'You've Got Mail'.

Kathleen: Confession. I have read Pride and Prejudice about 200 times. I get lost in the language, words like thither, mischance and felicity. I'm always in agony over whether Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy will ever get together...

Yes, I love this movie. In fact, I confess that I have watched this movie so many times that I have large chunks of the dialogue memorized. Me, a person who mostly watches artsy, historical or noir foreign films. Go figure. So many lines remind me of fun and funny snapshots in life, love and relationships. "What are you doing? The caviar is a GARNISH!" Yes, yes this is a shallow silly rom-com, that I freely admit. But I think a rom-com has to resound somewhere to be so entertaining. I know, the cynics will roll their eyes and groan:

You don't want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie. [to quote from Sleepless in Seattle]

Oh, I disagree. Sure, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are way prettier than the rest of us, but I'd guess anyone who has ever had the pleasure of falling head over heels in love remembers the way one's tongue seems to stop functioning properly, how one for some reason cannot stop foolishly staring at the other person, and then that knot in your throat when you realize this is the person with whom you want to say "for as long as we both shall live". You've Got Mail, in its clichéd, sappy way captures those moments entertainingly well -- for this closet romantic at least.

The songs are one of the great things about You've Got Mail. Here we revisit the way songs were used in Sleepless in Seattle. The particular words in the songs at the song cues are meant to say something about what is going on in a particular scene. Throughout the film, they are as much a part of the screenplay as the dialogue.
Joe: Um, is that you in the photograph? What are you doing?
Kathleen: Twirling. My mother and I used to twirl. Anyway, she left the store to me and I'm going to leave it to my daughter.
Joe: Oh, how old is, um, your daughter now? [out of the corner of his eye]
Kathleen: What? Well I don't have a daughter. Huh?...oh. [a smile and a gulp] No, I'm not married, but eventually.
Ah, she’s in trouble now. And here comes the song cue: "Never smile at a crocodile. No you can't get friendly with a crocodile. Don't be taken in by his wealth and grin..." Where does Nora Ephron find these songs?

There are a number of ideas, or funny topics of conversation, that are also revisited from Sleepless in Seattle. For example, there’s the idea that men and women bond to different types of movies. Remember that scene in Sleepless in Seattle where Sam's sister is crying over an 'Affair to Remember' over the dinner table and her husband mock cries over ‘the Dirty Dozen’. Well, You've Got Mail plays with that idea too, and this time with the Godfather.
Joe's IM: Go to the mattresses. It's from the Godfather. It means you have to go to war.
Kathleen's IM: Oh. What IS it with men and the Godfather? Hello?
Joe's IM: [to himself, Huh? Oh, come on. Hello?] The Godfather is the I-Ching. The Godfather is the sum of all wisdom. The Godfather is the answer to any question. What should I pack for my summer vacation. Leave the gun, take the cannoli...
[and Tom Hanks goes into another one his funny Godfather soliloquies.]

That Fox Books puts The Shop Around the Corner out of business is something many reviewers have commented on. "How can Kathleen forgive Joe so easily for that!!", they cry. Nora Ephron's commentary suggested that she felt it was not so black-and-white. There's a scene where Kathleen finally visits Fox Books. She had consoled herself with the idea that Fox Books is an evil book warehouse. But we see it's not so clear. Kids are enjoying books. But it's heartbreaking. There is really no way she can compete with the glitz, the selection, and the lower prices. I'm mean I hate to admit it, but a well-designed big and glitzy bookstore with a latte bar and deep cushy leather couches sure is a lot of fun to hang out at on a Sunday. Oh, shoot me, but it's the truth.

Nora Ephron also talks about how people tend to say things like "I could never be with someone who [fill in the blank]", but actually what it is that makes you fall in love with someone is a lot more mysterious than a check list of compatible political views, hobbies, musical tastes, and material possessions.
Joe: Hey, he could be the zipper man.
Kathleen: What?
Joe: The zipper man. He repairs zippers on Amsterdam Avenue.
Kathleen: Would you cut it out.
Joe: You'd never have to buy new luggage.
Kathleen: [laughing] Cut it out.

And yes, in the end, Kathleen and Joe get together. But we knew that, didn’t we. And the movie fades to the tune of "Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dared to dream... really do come true".

Well, it doesn't get much more sappy that that. Ah, but what a treat.

The Red and the White * * *

2005-12-25T14:43:00.000-08:00

Miklos Jancso's films are famous for plunking the viewer down in the middle of a scene with no background or context to ground the viewer. It's disorienting. The Red and the White is especially like this. As the film starts we see two men running across a field. You don't know who they are and you are never told. What's going on? Who are these characters? Eventually, we piece together that they are fighting for a Red Army militia and being hunted by a White Army militia.

Miklos Jancso films are known for being difficult, oblique, and experimental. We are so ingrained to want to be told a story, to have the comfort of a plot, to know 'what's going on'. But Jancso films are not like that. His is not telling a story – he’s making an impressionist painting. It reminds me of visiting a museum in Europe and staring at one of those huge paintings of a war scene -- except that now the painting is moving. So I think it’s helpful to approach Jancso’s work with the mind-frame of studying a painting, rather than watching a movie.

Jancso’s films are purposely disorienting. That said, some basic knowledge of the 1918 Civil War in Russia, will help you feel a little feel disoriented. But I suggest that you view this as an answer to the question 'What is the setting of this painting?' rather than 'What is the setting of the plot?', because this film does not have a plot and there is not meant to be a plot, per se. In the summer of 1918, civil war breaks out in Russia. There is the Red Army which is fighting for the Bolshevik government of Vladimir Lenin and is opposed a variety of anti-Bolshevik forces. One of the more important of these is the White Army, which in the summer of 1918 was a fine fighting force, though small in numbers. There are also a confusing array of other anti-Bolshevik armed groups, such as the Greens. In southern Russia, in the summer of 1918, small bands of these groups are fighting each other. The fighting is characterized by back and forth: capture, retreat, capture, retreat.

Enjoying Miklos Jancso's films is greatly enhanced by doing some research on what your watching beforehand. Otherwise, you’re likely to respond "What the &*#!3 is this piece of $#%?". Here are some of the important themes:
* Unique use of the screen
* Use of landscape as the stage
* Purposely, disconnecting the viewer from the action. You are an observer. You see but are not explained. The actions of the 'characters' are inexplicable. I put characters in quotes, because there are not characters in the traditional sense of the word, in many of Jancso's films.
* Ritual
* Long, long takes. One of his films uses only 6 takes.

The Red and the White is ranked by film critics as one of Jancso's best pieces of work and an important anti-war film. But for me personnally, I liked Electra, My Love better. Electra, My Love is much more 'over the top'. The surreal aspects are presented with a sledge hammer, and the wide open plains are used as a dance stage. I could appreciate Jancso's unique style without trying to figure out what was going. In Red and the White, I was continually distracted by trying to figure who was White and who was Red. However other people really like this movie: RandW review.

My take: You have to be interested in world directors or experimental film to enjoy this film. Be ready for 'something completely different', because nobody makes films that look quite like Miklos Jancso's.

Rented from Scarecrow Video.
My epinions review of The Red and the White.

Prisoner of the Mountains * * *

2005-12-12T04:24:00.000-08:00

In my continuing quest to watch some modern Russian blockbusters, I checked out Prisoner of the Mountains, which got a bunch of awards and has shown up on many foreign film bloggers lists of "good recent foreign films".

This is an engaging modern adaptation of a short story by Leo Tolstoy (written 150 years ago) about two Russian soldiers who get captured and are held as prisoners for to be exchanged for a Chechen prisoner. Given the nature of the Chechen conflict, this is also a movie about the sheer randomness and casual waste of young lives in war. But don't worry it's not a moralizing movie.

Particularyly if you've read stories about Chechnya and have wondered what it's like there, you might especially enjoy this movie. It's beautiful. Really beautiful. High stark mountains and sweeping vistas. You get to walk through the narrow streets of a Chechen village carved out of the top of a mountain, and hear the traditional songs. It makes you want to go there, except that you might get killed. This was filmed very close to the fighting.

Overall, it's a good movie to get on a Saturday night to watch with friends.

Trivia: The two male lead actors (Oleg Menshikov and Sergei Bodrov. Jr. who play the prisoners) are both very famous Russian actors. Oleg played Mitya in Burnt by the Sun.

Available in many big name video rental places and via Netflix.

Pelisky * * * *

2005-12-01T16:32:00.000-08:00

The year the Comrade Armies saved the Czechs from their Prague Spring

Pelisky (link to DVD on Amazon)
Pelisky is a popular recent comedy from the Czech Republic set in the Communist period. It follows three families in Czechoslovakia over the Christmas holidays 1967/1968 and then the day of August 21, 1968. It has some universal themes: teenage angst or "Help me I've been abducted into the most embarrassing family on earth", the comical joys of dating after 40, and the universal humor of the holiday family gathering. This is a very funny movie that really captures Czech culture and personality -- although non-Czechs will recognize many of these characters from their own extended family. But to understand the movie, you need to have a feeling for the special 1967/1968 years in Czechoslovakia that these characters were living through.

Post WW2, the liberation of Czechoslovakia from the Nazis by The Red Army led to an immediate strengthening of the political power of the local Communist Party, and in February 1948, sensing loss of popular support right before the upcoming elections, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia staged a political putsch in which the country became a hard-core Stalinist state. A bloody period of 1950's ensued: purges, executions, uranium mines, labor camps, collectivization of the farms, confiscation of property, fall of currency and confiscations of life savings. For many young people, however, it was also a period of great optimism and hope about the upcoming new world order. Those who did not share the optimism quickly disappeared: the lucky ones "over the hills"; the unlucky ones "behind bars"; and the rest of the land quickly became grim and mum.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Czechoslovak Communism became somewhat less lethal, but a long-term period of strict censorship of all forms of public expression was kept in place. Only approved writers were able to publish works written in the so-called socialistic realism. The economy collapsed and the only question was how far it could fall. Czechoslovakia was integrated into the Warsaw Pact, and industry was restructured to support the Soviet side or arms race. Life became an endless sequence of demonstrative meetings and October Revolution celebrations. People were controlled via their children: "... But how can we let your child into high school, when your granny goes to church every Sunday?" Borders were practically sealed; for every successful escape there was one who died in the attempt. All had personal dociers, just as all had a class origin -- labor, working intelligentsia, burgeous/kulak -- in steeply increasing order of severity from fine to extremely bad.

In 1967, a period of thaw began. It started at a writers' conference about Franz Kafka and for about a year the warmth propagated rather imperceivably, through the upper echelons of the society. The common folk only sensed that, somehow, the grim was not as grim as before, the gray not as oppressive as before, and cracking jokes not as dangerous as before. In 1968, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia changed leadership to that of Alexander Dubcek and begun a conscientious, controlled process of liberalization. The period of Prague Spring begun and the initially controlled process quickly snowballed. Political trials of 1950s were reopened, accused were rehabilitated, many posthumously. Writers' and movie makers' opened their drawers as suddenly as they were permitted to publish their stored works; many old actors and actresses were allowed back to the stage or film again. "We do not need democratization, we just need democracy..." declared Jan Werich, an actor, writer, and philosopher; probably the most respected and beloved man in the country.

This all ended the night from 21-22 August, 1968. Overnight the tanks of six Warsaw Pact countries squashed the Prague Spring. It was officially labeled brotherly help from Comrade Armies, and it returned Czechoslovakia to strict control, reeducation, and censorship for another twenty plus years.And yet through all this, Czechs and Slovaks never lost their sense of humor. In fact, the situation in many ways inspired humor. Those comic individuals who can poke fun in the darkest situations are who keep everyone else sane.

This is the setting of this movie.

[Written jointly with my husband]

The DVD of this movie has English subtitles, but it's hard to get outside the Czech Republic. www.czechmoviehouse.com seems to have it or go to www.dvdr.cz (but you need to read Czech). Sometimes you'll find it for sale on www.eBay.com;

Pupendo is a sort of follow-up to Pelisky by the same director.

Click on the tag, Czech, below to see reviews of other Czech films.

Burnt by the Sun * * * *

2005-11-28T21:52:00.000-08:00

Burnt by the Sun is set in the early 1930s in Russia. Stalin took power in the early 1920s after Lenin died. Shortly after the ‘cleansings’ began during which those with ties to the imperialist West, business owners, the middle class and certain ethnic groups were executed, sent to labor camps, or otherwise re-educated. By the 1930s, Stalin began executing his military officers, his right-hand men in the 1920s. He was to carry out two such purges of senior military officers before WWII. This film follows one day in the life of one such military officer, Sergei Kotov.

Sergei has a rare day off at his wife’s family’s dacha (country house). It is restful summer day, full of the things one does with extended family on vacation. A trip to the river for a swim, soccer in the afternoon, getting dressed up for lunch on the patio, reading and telling stories with his daughter, a sauna bath with his wife and child, laughing and lounging.

****spoilers below******

A visitor shows up at the dacha. It is Mitya, a young man who had lived nearby and had spent many happy days at this house, and was once the officer’s wife's lover. That was before she met Sergei, and before Sergei himself sent Mitya for a ‘re-education’, to France to spy for the Soviet Union, some ten years earlier. Sergei was at that time in the NKVD political police (predecesor to the KGB), and Mitya was a 27-year-old who had fought for the White Army and was from a middle class family. Mitya was called in and given the choice of prison/execution or doing the NKVD's bidding. To Sergei, it was simply the way it was. They sent many such young men away.

But now the tables are turned. Mitya is now in the NKVD, and it is Sergei who is on the execution list. We never see this. This film follows Sergei until shortly after he is arrested. But the movie is deeply unsettling, for me almost nauseating. The knowledge that Sergei’s life and his family’s life are going to be destroyed in one fell stroke is terrifying. The sun is warm, the day is lazy, and soon he will be in prison, tortured, forced to sign a confession for ludicrous crimes, and then executed. I feel deeply sympathetic to him in the movie, yet I'm conflicted about such sympathy. This man is a high-ranking officer in the Bolshevik Army, a right-hand man of Stalin. He was involved with the ‘cleansings’ of the early 1920s. Heroic, brave, devoted to his family, but his past is murky.

The Russian Revolution ate its disciples. The title is a reference to this: burnt by the sun. I have often been moved by the stories of young idealist communists – the foot soldiers of the revolution. Not because I sympathized with their ideology, but because they were filled with a great glorious youthful idealism...which created a monster, a snake that brought out the most selfish, oppressive, and intolerant in human nature and then turned on the those idealistic souls that helped bring it to power. Nothing can say it better than the philosophical credo of Krylenko, back-then the soviet commissar (minister) of justice: “We must execute not only the guilty. It is execution of the innocent that will really impress the masses!” He too perished in the Stalin era purges.

Starring: Oleg Menshikov (Mitya), Nikita Mikhalkov (Sergei), Ingeborga Dapkunaite (Marusia), Nadezhda Mikhalkova (Nadya; note she is the daughter of the actor who plays Sergei)

Things you might not know: Nikita Mikhalkov (the guy playing Sergei) is very famous in Russia, as an actor but more as a director. He has been called the 'Speilberg' of Russia. Biography here.

Available on Netflix.

Nowhere in Africa * * *

2005-11-19T10:53:00.000-08:00

The is a beautifully filmed movie about a jewish family that escapes Germany before WWII by emigrating to Kenya. It was the 2002 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film. It's a very enjoyable film. I was quite engaged the whole time, but it has some dramatic flaws and gets a bit slow in the middle of its 142 minutes. I'm not going to review this film since the review I would write has already been written by someone else. Here: Epinions Review. So now I'm going to assume you've read that review and know what the movie is about. What follows are simply some personal reflections about the film. The first two are critiques, but don't get me wrong; it's a beautiful film and well-acted. I do recommend it.

I think I had a hard time engaging with this film because I found the lead couple uncompelling. To me, this was basically a character study of a marriage in distress, with a lovely background coming-of-age story for the daughter. I never became very sympathetic to Jettel, the wife. She seems a bit mentally unstable to be honest. Day 1 of her arrival, she's in a deep embrace with her husband. Later a neighbor shows up, and she only has eyes for this scruffy man she's never seen before (huh? Can we have some explanation for this weird behavior). She seems to mature towards the middle, but then embarks on a painful seduction of their German Jewish neighbor. Then suddenly she's doing R-rated scenes with her husband. Ok, this was 1938 and she is a German Jew. She had every excuse to be mentally unstable, but I wanted some indication of the reasons for her disjointed behavior. Was she always like this? The husband was also somewhat unsympathetic. He tends to make substantial family decisions involving significant family disruption without consulting her at all, and then tries to manipulate her into going along by employing the 'Don't give up on us!' ploy. Ick. By the end, they are back together, but it is not at all clear that their relationship has really grown closer and deeper.

And I have to say that I felt mildly uncomfortable with the main African character. The cook reminded me a little too uncomfortably of the 'happy negro servant character who is devoted to his employers blue-eyed darling child' that we used to see in films from the 1960s and 1970s, a character-type which has been so villified since the 1970s. This was so different from a recent film I saw, "Something the Lord Made" about the first forays into cardiac surgery in the 1950s and the sometimes uncomfortable friendship between the brilliant white surgeon and his equally brilliant black assistant.

I was particularly interested to see Nowhere in Africa since Mathias Habich is in it. He is a Polish TV/film actor who seems to do a bit of work in Germany. He was in Downfall as the German surgeon who you see mainly amputating a long series of soldiers' legs and arms. He has a much bigger role in Nowhere in Africa as he plays the couple's German-Jewish neighbor. I liked him a lot here.

Ballard of a Soldier * * * * *

2005-11-17T12:07:00.000-08:00

This is the story of a 19-year old Russian soldier during WWII who through a bit of luck and pluck knocks out 2 German tanks and gets 6 days leave to travel to see his mother. It is during the period of the war when Germany is steadily gaining ground on Russia during the German army's push north towards Moscow. The trains are full of soldiers and refugees. The speakers in the villages announce news of the war -- news of retreat and of villages surrendered. The landscape out the window of the train is devastation. But this is a story of one young man, full of joy of the simple luck of getting time off to go home for a couple days. It is the story of his journey, the people he meets along the way, the girl he meets and falls in love with, and his good-natured help but also heartbreaks.

I had seen this movie listed on so many "My favorite foreign movie" lists that I finally decided to see it. It's now on my "favorite foreign movies" list. There is something wonderful about it. It reminds me of "It's a Wonderful Life". Not because of the plot. The plots have nothing in common. Each is a simple story told in softened black-and-white, a painting of life instead of a photograph, and follows a charismatic central character. It's an uplifting beautiful story even though it is set in the context of the sadness of war: war widows, refugees, losing your parents, losing your sons, wounded and depressed soldiers, unfaithful wives, and losing your home.

Available on Netflix and Amazon.

Russian Ark *

2005-11-15T09:46:00.000-08:00

Russian Ark is an unusual tour through Russian history since the late 1800s. It's not what I expected from the reviews. In fact, unless you actually know Russian history, you're likely to be a bit lost -- well, certainly that was my experience. The film follows an unseen visitor who is plopped into a series of historical scenes. Scenes which I'm sure Russians will recognize, just as I would recognize famous American historical scenes, but which were fairly meaningless to me, a non-Russian. The unseen 'dream' visitor meets another 'dream' visitor who is/was a diplomat in some European country (that's him in the picture). The saucy interactions between these two provides the only humor. The European is constantly making comments about how the Russians are copying the Europeans and that the only culture comes from the Europeans. Example is an interaction during a symphony: "Oh, what wonderful music. The musicians must be Italians, only Italians can play like that." "No, they're Russians." "Ha, very funny, no they must be Italians or perhaps Germans. Ah, German culture..." "They are Russians." Etc, etc, you get the idea. That this is must be funny to a Russian audience is interesting to me -- a kind of self-deprecating humor.

One of the interesting things about this is that it is filmed as one 89 min shot, seriously one continuous shot. The visitors walk through halls and corridors and thereby enter different historical scenes. That in and of itself is why I wanted to see this. I've been watching Miklas Jancso's films where he uses long shots also. This is very different than what ones sees in your typical film, where a take might be seconds in length.

If you are interested in Russian history, European art (many scenes are in one of the main Russian museums), and Russian architecture, you would probably find this interesting. Just don't go in expecting a 'plot' or to learn anything about Russian history.

No Man's Land * * *

2005-11-11T22:54:00.000-08:00

No Man's Land was the 2001 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, and it won a long, long list of awards in Europe also. It's the story of three soldiers that end up trapped in a trench between enemy (in this case, Serbian and Bosnian) lines during the Serb-Bosnian war. Two soldiers are Bosnia and one is Serbian. The story is a bit like a play carried out in a trench. The two main characters are one of the Bosnians and the Serb (the other Bosnian is trapped on top of a mine). The plot follows the 'relationship' of the two soldiers as it evolves over the course of a day, from enemies, to begrudging cooperators, and then to hatred.

Most reviews I've read have focused on the film's message of the insanity and senselessness of war. However, to me, it was more about the perverseness and sheer arbitrary nature of hatred by individual soliders. Mere chance of parentage determines that one would end up on one side versus the other. Under other circumstances these two soldiers would have gotten along perfectly fine. It reminds me of the story about the German and English (I think) soldiers in WWI who were shooting at each other from two trench lines and somehow decided to take a break and have a soccer game together.

Compared to the other war film I saw recently, Downfall, I think No Man's Land is certainly a good film, but it didn't feel like a 'landmark film' like Downfall. Somehow, it didn't have the same 'Oh, wow' factor, for me. Also one of the differences to Downfall, is that this did feel like a film rather than like I was a 'fly on the wall' in the trench. The acting is excellent, and I can't put my finger on why I felt that way, but nonetheless, that is a difference from how I felt watching Downfall.

Rent it from Netflix

Gyorgy Cserhalmi films

2005-11-09T22:32:00.000-08:00

Gyorgy Cserhalmi has been one of the top leading actors in Hungary since the 1970s. He is also well known in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. I've seen him described as the "best known Hungarian actor in Slovakia" (hmm) and he received a life-time achievement award by the Slovak film academy. Of course, unless you live in Hungary, the Czech Republic, or Slovakia, you have probably never heard of him. I first saw him in Zelary, which was nominated for best foreign film at the Oscars a few years ago. He has been in over 70 films, but most of these are a) in Hungarian and b) not available outside Hungary. Those that are available tend to art-films or film-noir, which really belies his work since he has been in loads of dramas and crime dramas. But you take what you can get, and so I have watched many art-films and film-noir that I would have never watched otherwise:

Zelary: an epic romantic drama about a young medical student who has to go to a little village to hide during WWII. Cserhalmi is the co-lead here and this is by far the best acting that I've seen of him. Geislerova (the lead) is also great.

Karhozat(aka Damnation): director Bela Tarr, serious film-noir!! This is one of the most visually striking films I've watched. However with that glowing comment, I should note that only those willing to tolerate avant-garde film should consider watching this. Cserhalmi was in a supporting role. Released by Criterion Classics, avail. at DVDTimes.com.

Kontroll: an odd story about a young ticket controller on the Budapest subway system by a young new Hungarian director. This is film-noir but accessible to a much wider audience than Karhozat. Cserhalmi is in a supporting role. Kontroll is widely available on DVD.

Mephisto: a classic must-see by the Hungarian mega-director István Szabó. Anyone interested in modern European history and Germany should see this film. The lead, Klaus Maria-Brandauer, is fantastic. Cserhalmi has a supporting role and he's fairly wooden in it. Mephisto is widely available for rent or purchase.

Hanussen: another by Szabó. Cserhalmi has a minor supporting role. Hanussen is also widely available for rent or purchase. I'm not a big fan of Hanussen. I didn't quite get the point of it.

Electra, My Love: director Miklos Jancso. Can you say art film? I really like this film. It's over the top 1970s art. Cserhalmi is in a lead role. This is available through Amazon.

Hungarian Rhapsody: another Jancso art film. I can't believe I sat through this film. It's kind of about revolts against the aristocrats in Hungary in the 1800s. Cserhalmi is the lead and is pretty wooden here. This is hard to find and is on VHS only.

Stalin's Bride: A satire about the Stalin-era and its corruptive effects on society. Cserhalmi is in a main supporting role. He mainly sits around cracking walnuts.

The Bridgeman: the most expensive Hungarian film ever made, supporting role. This is available at Amazon. I haven't seen it yet.

Szirmok, virágok, koszorúk (Flowers of Reverie): I don't know a thing about this. Available at Facets. It won a silver Berlin Bear at the 1984 Berlin International film festival.

The following movies are available only in Hungary. This site odeon.hu lists shops in Budapest that have these titles.

Az igazi Mikulás (The Real Santa): Just out in 2005, an apparently lame film (based on the really low marks on imdb.com) about a one-legged bum who by a curious turn of events is playing Santa and is beset by a little girl who wants a bike. Co US/Hungarian/Serbian produced film. Cserhalmi got a Hungarian film critics award for his acting here. Released on DVD in Hungary. Subtitled.

The Unburied Man (A Temetetlen halott): a recent movie on the Hungarian prime minister Nagy Imre who stood up to the Communists in the 50s. He was executed, obviously. Cserhalmi was in a supporting role and was awarded best supporting actor for this performance. It's available on DVD in Hungary, but it doesn't seem to be distributed outside the country. Subtitled.

Kántor 1-2: This is a TV detective series from the 1970s. Apparently out 11-2-2005 or 2-11-2005 and released by Mokep.hu. It probably won't be subtitled.

Az ember, aki nappal aludt: Hungarian crime drama, poorly received by critics. On VHS and released in Hungary only.

Hamvadó cigarettavég (Smouldering cigarette): romantic musical set in Budapest. It won a couple awards at festivals. On VHS and released in Hungary only.

Megint tanú (Witness again): Hungarian satire by Peter Basco about modern Hungary. On VHS and released in Hungary only with English subtitles. The title is a reference to Peter Basco's acclaimed film Tanú (The Witness), a social commentary about life in the 1950s (I think).

Anna filmje (Anna's film): Drama about a woman who gets pregnant with her 4th kid, unhappily. On VHS and released in Hungary only with English subtitles.

Kék Duna keringő (Blue Danube Waltz): Crime drama. On VHS and released in Hungary only.

A Nagy generáció (The Great Generation): This award-winning film is a commentary on the nature of the older and younger generation in Hungary during the mid-'80s. On VHS and released in Hungary only with English subtitles.

Hajnali háztetők (Rooftops at Dawn): Drama about ?. Cserhalmi was awarded best actor in the Hungarian Film Fest for this; the film got best cinematography too. On VHS and released in Hungary only.

Szörnyek évadja (Season of Monsters): This is by the director Miklos Jancso (very important eastern European director). It got an honorable mention at the Venice film festival. It one of Jancso's later political films exploring the subversion of grand socialist idealism. I can't believe this is unavailable outside Hungary. On VHS and released in Hungary only in Hungarian (grr).

A Tanítványok (The Disciples): Message film about the dangers of big agrarian business. On VHS and released in Hungary only.

Dögkeselyü: Crime drama about some old women who steal from a poor taxi driver. Nominated for a Golden Berlin Bear at the 1983 Berlin film festival. On VHS and released in Hungary only.

Nárcisz és Psyché (Narcissus and Psyche): Bizarre drama. On VHS and released in Hungary only.

80 huszár: Period drama about the Hungarian revolution in 1848-49. Released in Hungary in Hungarian and German.

Egy erkölcsös éjszaka (A Very Moral Night): Comedy about a whorehouse in a little town. Nominated for a Golden Palm at the 1978 Cannes film festival. Released in Hungary in Hungarian.

Kísértet Lublón (Phantom on Horseback): ? Released in Hungary in Hungarian.

Amerikai anzix (American Torso): Three Hungarians find themselves in the American West during the Civil War era, and they discuss love and surveying technology. Ok... Won an award at the Heidelberg film festival. Released in Hungary in Hungarian.

Elektra My Love * * *

2005-11-08T23:53:00.000-08:00

This is one of the best known films by the Hungarian director, Miklas Jansco. This is not a 'film' in the traditional sense of the word. It seemed more like a choreographed musical with the stage being an endless plain. The cinematography is beautiful -- deep colors and sweeping vistas. It does have a plot, but keep in mind that this is really a tragic greek play set to a choreographed Hungarina dance and the film is rather obviously a metaphor for life under communist rule. For example, one of the lines early on is "Lies pollute all like the plague". And the response of the king, is essentially the line I heard a number of times when in East Germany and the Czechoslovaki in the 1980s: "A lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth".

The ubiquitous dances.

The plot is entertaining. Elektra's father, let's call him A1 since I can't recall his name, was a bad king and a weak king. A2, his brother and Elektra's uncle, kills him and takes over. A2 is a tyrant and keeps the populace in check with a combination of fear and placation. Elektra has been grieving her father's murder for the last 15 years. She speaks crazy things like freedom and justice are more important than peace. She is widely regarded as mad -- although she looks mostly like an over-serious 1970s feminist. She is waiting for her brother (played by Cserhalmi) to come back, and kill A2 and avenge A1's death. While waiting for him, she admonishes the people that they accept tyranny for peace and accept lies in exchange for full bellies. The people predictably put their hands over their ears during this sanctimonious lecture. Anyhow, her brother does show up, and Elektra kills him. Conveniently for her, he comes back to life. Her brother then kills A2 and his lackey. Elektra is now happy. Elektra and her brother then kill each other, and then they come back to life. They do this a few times. Finally, they fly off in a red helicopter. I'm not making this up.

I watched Elektra My Love because Gyorgy Cserhalmi is in it and I'm trying to see his films. This is not too big of a task since very few Hungarian films are released on video. Of his 80 or so films, less than 10 have been released. This was the best of the three 1970s films I've seen. In Hungarian Rhapsody, he was desperately wooden, and here he's quite a bit more natural.

Personally, I thought this was a really interesting film. The dances set on the plains were beautiful and I liked the Hungarian folk music that played throughout. That said, this is an Art Film. It's really not like anything you'd normally pick up in Blockbuster, and only those into impressionistic film would want to see this. Finally, the burning question...what on earth are they doing in the top picture with that big ball? Beats me. This was a bit of symbolism that escaped me.

This clip will give you a good sense of the film:

Buy it at Amazon
Rent it from Netflix (amusing plot summary; I don't think they watched the movie)
Rent in person at Scarecrow Video
Good Kinoeye.org discussion of this film