A Outra Face da Guerra

Considering the budget cast is working with.. its very well made. Acting on other hand.. Could have been better but in general enjoyable movie to watch.

A moving story of teenager, who joins army to fight for his people, and his coming-of age against the backdrop of terrors of first World War I, then Russian revolution and finally Latvian War of Independence. A film making at its best, and an especially moving story for Latvians, as it all really happened just a hundred years ago, a birth of our nation state.

Based on true events and the novel by Aleksandrs Grins, it is a moving story of friendships and strong camaraderie amongst the soldiers in the WW1 battlefields of Latvia (part of old Russia in 1915). Undaunted by guns, grenades, snipers, bayonets, blizzards, and all the bloody horrors of WW1 ... fearless Latvians were proud to defend their homeland from the Germans.

Young actors and engaging characters make compelling watching. The Isle of Death and Christmas fights. I usually do not like war movies (bloodshed) but after 30 mins of viewing, I was hooked. l had to watch it to the end just to see what happened to the FRIENDS who fought TOGETHER - HEROES OF LATVIA. Historically, 1.2M Latvians died in that war. Not telling if the boy hero Arturs, or any of his friends survived the war ... but you might need a hanky at the end of the movie.

I'm buying the video from Amazon Prime, as it really is a good movie that you could and would want to watch again, unlike most war films which are too grisly gore fests. It premiered with Screen International on-line screenings yesterday. Good luck to cast and crew with this year's Oscars.

Latvia, the playground of other nations. A small country suffering from the war. You don't often get to see something cinematic from Latvia. And this film in particular can compete with greats in the world. Even if the budget has certainly lost some of its visual power, it is intense and always believable.

Due to the low budget, the film is full of ingenuity. Especially seeing the fight scenes without pompous music is just very stressful and looks very real.

Unfortunately from the second third the film loses its speed and its emotional connection to the viewer. It becomes banal and harmless. In addition, the actors are sometimes not very convincing. Still absolutely worth seeing.

The movie was realy good, it is definetly the best latvian war movie, and prehaps the best ww1 movie out of all of them. The only problem i can pinpoint is the acting and sometimes the diolouge, wich was decent for most of the characters but sometimes the main characters voice acting was just terible in my opinion. I wouldnt say that the acting ruined the movie tough. Most of it was realy servicable, and i quite like that they didnt take all the overused latvian actors wich were realy tireing. Overall, the movie was fantastic, telling a almost completely unexplored ww1 front, especialy when it comes to wich part of the front. Definetly would recomend to anyone even remotely interested in ww1.