Tobruk

There was a FRench movie called "Un Taxi Pour Tobruk" in the early sixties but it has nothing (or almost nothing to do with "Tobruk" except for the historical context).Based on a true story ,it deals with the plight of young Czech volunteers who were sent to war without any training.This is a situation which is still happening today when even children become recruits.This is a realistic depiction ,not very story like ,sometimes close to documentary ,depicting the sufferings and the small joys (the mail is one of their one pleasures but some of them do not receive any letters ).Even the cliché,as old as the hills ,of the sarge with a heart of stone,is avoided.Not exactly an entertaining movie ,but an honest one ,which shows war for what it is : young men dying when their life has barely begun.

This narrow insight into the famous battle of the North African Campaign during the Second World War could just leave you cold. Agreed, there generally aren't too many productions about the (Czecho)Slovakian participation in the war but I have to say that Dark Blue World was simply the better and the more interesting movie. Maybe I was just too much disappointed by the advertising of the film that promised to consider the whole battle but this film presented only very small portion of the action. More highlighted were some shocking twists of a runaway soldier, which maybe have a fair anti-war purpose but then the movie should have had entirely a different name than "Tobruk". Avoid this if you want to see a film about the battle of Tobruk; and watch this if you were looking for a film about war in bare bones.

This excellent movie follows the Czechoslovakian soldiers who fought with the Allies in the Desert War during World War 2. Do not expect a glorification of the entire Tobruk battle. This is the story of a particular group, and what they experienced. This is an updating of the Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane - a story based on the realization by a young man of exactly what war is.

The young man's ideas of honor and the fight for a moral imperative are destroyed by the horrors of the war. This story brings home exactly what troops went through in those battles.

We watched with subtitles, but even without knowing the language, the actors brought the meaning through the language barrier.

Special effects are amazing. There is full frontal nudity during a shower scene, and horrific - but not out of place - gore.

One by one the Eastern European movies are drawing line with Hollywood, especially in the badly neglected production value department. The best example, together with a couple of solid Hungarian and Polish attempts, are probably Night Watch, Day Watch or The 9th Company from Russia. The fourth one to catch up is the once great Czech cinematography. Tobruk is certainly no Private Ryan or Pearl Harbour, neither budget-wise nor fun-wise, but it sure looks and feels damn good, especially the music and sounds (divx is a poor option, must see in decent Dolby movie theatre!). It's probably not the best choice for pure action flick lovers and blockbuster addicts, Tobruk is too lengthy, austere and broody for that, more in the The Thin Red Line style or - perhaps more fittingly - All Quiet on the Western Front. But for real war movie lovers it makes it up with some really mean and gory scenes, 0% cheesiness and uncompromising WWII North Africa authenticity - and you can never get enough of those, am I right? :)

There were two reasons I rushed to see this one, firstly because I loved Dark Blue World, a compassionate Czech war film about Czech pilots flying in the RAF in the Battle of Britain. It instilled in me the idea that Czech cinema could show the world how it was possible to have local soldiers alongside those of another nation without anyone getting insulted.

The second reason was that it was about Tobruk- a battle almost never seen on screen and a legendary one in the history of soldiers of my country.

Firstly I must say that Tobruk treats Australians well. We don't turn up much but when we do we seem human enough. One particular part showing some Aussies drinking in a bar and nonchalantly cheering for a man who has just fallen down the stairs seemed like a bit of comedy specially there for us, and it shows the attention to detail the cultural research must have had.

As a movie itself though, it was pretty lackluster. I don't mean because there is hardly any action (but be warned if you want action- there's little to go round) but because the movie just doesn't know what it wants to do, or who it should be following. At one point the camera follows a terror stricken deserter for a good 15 minutes, but when he meets up with some friends who have seen recent action, one has to wonder why the hell the camera didn't show their struggle instead. It seems the budget was blown on artillery barrages (which look very impressive BTW).

The characters are good, and you can identify with them, but they don't really change at all, and for some reason there's a cliffhanger ending. Since this movie doesn't really seem like one that is begging for a sequel, the ending seems pretty abrupt and badly written.

So yeah. Not very good. Avoid it if you want Action, an outline of the battle and/or why it was so important, a glimpse of a tank of any kind (despite being a large part of the battle), or for that matter, a glimpse of a German soldier. Yeah, hard to believe, isn't it.

However see it for the character study, what it's like to be a Jew disliked by an army fighting to protect your kind, training scenes, dim bunker scenes, the interesting dynamic of men being led by a man they hate so much they'd almost kill him themselves (and you'll wish for it too) and some fairly good desert photography. Oh and if you loved that shot out of Benjamin Button where the sub and tugboat were slinging blazing tracers at each other in the dead of night, there's a bit of that here too. Definitely a 'watch it to see what it was like back then' film rather than any real entertainment.