During the October 1941 drive by German forces on Moscow, the city of Kalinin lies directly on their attack route. The city's residents make preparations for its defense while dealing with military and personal crises, as well ad fifth columnists within their lines.
For reasons uncertain, Walmart has for the last several years stocked in its DVD section imported Russian war films. For those of us who work in the field of World War II history, its been a useful window into how the Putin government and sections of Russian society might view WW II from a 75 years-plus perspective. Its now uncertain, post-Ukraine invasion in 2022, if this perspective will continue.
An American reviewer not a Russia specialist is more than likely missing some nuances in "Never Say Goodnye," retitled for the U. S as "The Frozen Front 1941." But with some experience viewing period wartime Soviet war dramas one can note the 1940's pedantic approach of the actors speaking mainly in heroic declarations is gone. Presumably with more exposure to international films, Russian movie producers are more willing to tell stories out of the direct political sphere and to depict a slightly more diverse portrait of the USSR at war.
Russian collaboration with the Germans is shown, as is the Stalinist practice of children acting as NKVD secret police informants. Not all citizens want to fight to the last ditch, and much of the daily interaction takes place without political reference to Stalin.
Andrey Merzlikin, who apparently is a mainstay protagonist of Russian movies and tv, portrays Major Sysoev. His loyalties are kept ambiguous for much of the film, and his acting style reinforces well his mysterious status. But the women's roles give the production its most interesting story threads. Alyona Chekova is a mayor's daughter who wants into the fight; Anna Churina is an NKVD officer and wife attempting to uncover the infiltrators, and Anna Peskova is woman soldier also battling a failing marriage.
This is of course likely not an unfettered independent production; the NKVD is shown strictly as an agency of justice, and no mention is made of the Soviet massacre of 6200 Polish POW's near Kalinin in 1940. And the production cannot be walled off from the Putin regime's attempt to blur the themes of 1940-45 into justification for aggression against Ukraine.
WW II students will find an entry point in the cameo portrayal of Gen. Ivan Konev (Andrey Smolyakov), who survived Stalin's purges, fought on the Eastern Front until Germany's defeat, then suppressed the popular uprisings in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968). Kalinin did fall to the Wehrmacht, but was recaptured by the Red Army in Dec. 1941.
Production values are fairly high, though the final battle seems overly set-piece. An attempt is made to show the Red Army prior to the tank-heavy juggernaut it became in 1945, though minus the 1941 panic and disorganization Stalin's failure to prepare set off. The Germans mainly show up in air raids and as distantly advancing figures. No matter; similar Russian productions I have viewed seem uninterested in moving beyond 1940's stick-figure villain portrayals, and likely the memories are still too raw to permit much else.
The Russian producers here present an engaging war drama, and the quality of the acting suggests that some potentially major works could result from co-productions with the West - provided that the Russian state would not be exerting editorial control. That will have to wait for a better era while the tragically real-life war drama in Donetsk and Mariupol plays out on our television screens.
