Great War Movie

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2012)

This movie was a really good movie about war. I enjoyed the realistic point of view made by Klimov throughout. There were many points throughout the movie that I greatly enjoyed. One was where the two main characters are crossing a very thick swamp filled with mud. This scene was very realistic (because the actors actually did this while they were being filmed) and it spoke a lot about how desperate times call for desperate measures. Just prior to this, when they were running to the swamp, there was a quick shot of a lot of dead bodies in Florya's neighborhood. This shows how cruel times of war are and even though the shot was very short, the impact was immense. The ending of this movie was very interesting to me as well. When Florya started shooting the picture of Hitler and having flashbacks on certain things throughout the history of Germany, I was surprised that the montage was going backwards instead of forwards. Also, it was a very deep scene because it showed the hatred towards Hitler and it showed that the whole reason why they were in that position was because of Hitler. I thought that when Florya joined the army again after shooting the picture proved the brotherhood of the army and how once you're sucked in, it's difficult to leave. After that, the ending was amazing to be. The shot of the snow in the middle of the forest with the very powerful music in the background made it even more important than any normal ending. The snow represented the downfall of Germany, because the winters are what got the Russians the victory over Germany and the music just added a lot of mood to that scene. I would definitely recommend this movie to many people, especially those who like war movies and those who want to go to war to see what it actually is like.