Eles Lutaram pela Pátria

An excellent WW2 movie set on the Eastern Front near the Don River. Very authentic with lots of action. Kind of an epic scale of bravery at a period in the war when Germany seemed unbeatable. Stalingrad is raging at this time. This battalion is a rear guard as the others retreat across the Don River. The english subtitles are kind of poor. A man speaks and nothing or the dialogue is there but early or late for the scene. Its still a fine movie.

A major war movie, with an intimate sight on a Soviet regiment that is fighting back invading Nazi troops while retreating. Another interesting issue that is portrayed here are their relations with local peasant people, whose feelings towards retreat are well explored by the script too. Anyway, the greatest merit of this film are the war scenes, very well done, quite realistic.

In July 1942, in the Second World War, the rearguard of the Russian army protects the bridgehead of the Don River against the German army while the retreating Russian troops cross the bridge heading to Stanlingrad. While they move back to the Russian territory through the countryside, the soldiers show their companionship, sentiments, fears and heroism to defend their motherland Russian.

"Oni Srazhalis za Rodinu" a.k.a. "They Fought for Their Country" is a realistic war movie, with action and drama very well balanced. The greatest flaw in the screenplay is the usual exaggerated propaganda of the heroism of the soldiers, but it is nothing offensive to the viewer. This film has not been released in Brazil on VHS or DVD and I watched an unofficial DVD that skips the subtitles for long periods and consequently many dialogs are lost. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Eles Lutam por Sua Pátria" ("They Fight for their Motherland")

As a tradition for Soviet movies, most of the actors here are theatrical actors and their interaction on the screen is nothing if not realistic and natural. But Shulshin's talent makes him rise above others.

If that's not enough you have Nikulin, who was a war veteran himself, in one of his dramatic roles.

They fought For Their Motherland is a screen adoption of the prize winning novel by Mikhail Sholokhovis and is directed by proclaimed Russian director Sergi Bondarchuk. It was nominated for the prestigious palme d'Or at Cannes film festival in 1975; which illustrate how powerful the film is. Approval for the film adoption of the Great Patriotic War came from the Russian Ministry of Defence via the Russian cinema council.

The film concentrates on a small number of individual regimental soldiers fighting within a larger battalion on the Russian Steppes in 1942. We are shown not noble soldiers and distinguished officers of the "glorious" Red Army, but ordinary fighting men. They are hungry, dirty, mentally and physically drained. Also, they are exhausted by their continuous 12 months retreat eastwards towards the river Donn and eventually Stalingrad. The soldiers find harmony in talking about home, family and express their emotions and feeling on the war and what it as done to them as people and their motherland. Location is presented impressively on film; firstly, by using wide angel lenses to capture the vast midst of the Steppe salt marches and corn fields. Secondly, by using close angel lenses to photograph the soldiers as they pass through, rest and interact with nervous civilians in the inhabited dwellings. With a large budget comes large battle scenes. The film shows the merciless destruction of land and villages by Luftwaffe air strikes. Defensive formations containing a whole battalion which is broad in scale and includes large battle formation shoots. The film doesn't over exaggerate when handling the destruction, human cost and horror of battle in its scenes.

The main depiction of war, battle and destruction are powerfully focused on individual soldiers. This film tells a similar story for many veteran soldiers of the second world war, whatever the nationality. Boredom, fatigue, fear, fun, friendship, enemies, orders, pain, loss, distress, death and a longing to go home.

They Fought For Their Motherland" tours the inferno imposed upon the soviet people, both military and civilian, on one side by the advancing, all concurring, disciplined German army. And on the other by years of hardship, personal sacrifice, poverty and living to the ideologist view of the soviet dictatorship. This is not the most graphic of war films in todays standard of brutal, realistic, fast passed combat movies. There are scenes of battle sustained injuries and death. However, this film focuses the humanity of war and what it does to the land, and the opinions of people in occupied nations towards the soldiers who are there to protect them. This is a patriotic film from a Russian point of view, which for many years, as at the time of release, future Russian generations, and other nations that fought in the red army, should look back with pride and honour towards those who fought, and died, for their motherland.