Preboj

The time is March 1945, with the Wehrmacht and the SS on the run, trying to retreat to Third Reich territory to face the final onslaught of the Red Army that will end in total German defeat and surrender in May 1945. Their escape route West is subject to attacks by Slovenian partisans and the SS Division Galicia is already on its way from Hungary to deal with them. In the dead of a cold winter, a group of about 500 partisans under the command of 22 year old Franc Sever (Franta) retreat to the slopes of the Menina mountain to avoid the German frontal onslaught. At intervals im the movie we see the real Franta (96 years old in 2019) writing his war memoirs on which this movie is based. At the end, men and women survivors of the Menina action add their views.

I liked this movie. The budget was obviously limited and there are some rough edges in acting and direction, but it pays due homage to the Yugoslavian partisans that carried out an heroic fight against Nazism with scarce or no resources. And, it is also timely in view of disquieting revisionist notions taking hold in Europe. The Galicia Division was guilty of numerous atrocities, praised by Himmler and declared a criminal organization at the Nurenberg Trials. It was composed of ethnic Ukrainians and on April 28 2021 there was a parade in Kyiv celebrating the Division (there were various such demonstrations in Lviv and other cities too). The march was approved by city authorities and there was support from bystanders but, to his credit, President Zelensky condemned it.

One of the worst movies i've ever seen. Dialogues are terrible, story is partly unlogical (you do not waste your last morphine for those, who have NO chance to survive).

The storyteller reminds me of the film "300" but there that was meant humorous and therefor funny, but here they mean it serious and that is just absolutely awful pathetic, unwillingly (not) funny - like 300 for the poor ;-).

And last but not least: EXTREMELY boring.

Don't watch - complete waste of time.

A weird picture that on some specialized sites somehow got mixed in with proper good South Korean production. It seems to want to offer a new take on Eastern European partisans during WW2. The rag tag communist paramilitaries are usually known for blind adherence to ideology, robbing poor farmers and war crimes but here they're trying to tell us they also had a human side so they're shown performing a series of mundane and, for the viewer, increasingly boring tasks such as mending socks, cooking soup or reading books. A bit of action is then thrown in, with the obligatory flame throwing Nazis but it all falls flat. I understand the movie had a meagre budget but that's no excuse for stereotypical characters, dull dialogue and wooden acting, all in all it has the air of amateurism written all over it, best skipped.

Showing one of the last big battles in Slovenia between the Nazis and the local partisans during WW2. Considering the extremely low budget (cca. 40.000 $) the movie is surprisingly good.

Low-budget film that delves into a scarcely or rarely explored chapter of WWII, less known by the general public. Technically, it stands out for its outdoor photography capturing highly evocative mountain landscapes. The direction is somewhat academic, and the actors are not always believable in a type of performance that requires faces weathered by suffering and hardship. Nonetheless, there are very credible moments despite others being less so. Watching the final minutes of the film is crucial to understanding that it is based on a true story.

I rate it 6 out of 10 for the effort in creating a low-budget film that doesn't turn out to be a disaster. I'll add 1 star for the photography and for the ending...