Hommes en guerre

Oh my God! I just watched this movie for a first time, and all I can say that it's truly great. Absolutely epic masterpiece from notable Soviet director Sergey Vasilyev. First of all this is a war/battle movie so it contains a lot of battle scenes which is truly epic, especially the part with infantry charge on Pleven. Even 55 years after the day that scenes were filmed they still looks like one of the best battle scenes of all time. Acting and direction here are also well. Sergey Vasilyev's crew and cast of best Soviet and Bulgarian actors did an outstanding work in that movie. Yeah, some people may say that "Heroes of Shipka" also contains some of Soviet's Marxist propaganda, but come on! There is only a little bit of it in the whole movie, so you just can left it behind. And nope it is not boring at all. I watched it "on one breath" as we say in Russia =) So if you likes a well done war epic/battle dramas - this movie is just for you. I recommend it.

The film focuses on a key event in the history of Bulgaria - the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation \1877-1878\, after which the Bulgarian nation won its Freedom. The film follows the crucial moments of the war. Thousands of extras were used to depict the crossing of the Danube and the battle of Stara Zagora. At Stara Zagora the leading elements of the Russian army \the so called Forward squad\ and the Bulgarian volunteers met the army of generalissimo Suleiman pasha, fought bravely and, after all, were pushed back to the strategic Shipka pass. The defense of the pass in august 1877 proved to be one of the most famous battles, fought on Bulgarian soil. It also became a legendary victory for both the Bulgarians and the Russians. It is, of course, the climax of the film, with vivid battle sequences. The Russo-Bulgarian military comradeship is shown here at its best with a lot of memorable moments. The film then brings us to the siege of Pleven, where the army of marshal Osman pasha was surrounded, and, after several bloody assaults by the Russian forces, eventually was urged to surrender in November 1877. The film also shows the passing of the Balkan mountain range and the march to Constantinople, where, in a small suburb of the Turkish capital, called San Stefano, the cease-fire agreement took place \3.03.1878\ and Bulgaria emerged after 500 years of oblivion

It is one of those movies which I was unable to watch without wincing. The main idea is taken from Marx: folk as moving force of every historical event. If you don't understand it immediately, don't worry – you'll be explained it again and again! All the historical personalities look like sketches on themselves. Russian tsar Alexander the Third looks and talks like idiot. Heroes are divided into 2 main parts – bad ones: those who do not think in categories of "folk" and "people", and good ones: those who understand that all the wars in history are won by folk. The good thing about that movie is that it reminds us about almost forgotten page of our history. It is true. It was exactly Russians (with a little help of Austria) who helped Bulgarians become independent of Turkish. Even if Russians followed their own interests in that case it doesn't make the event less important for Bulgarians. The most terrible thing about that movie is that it is just completely boring!

I watched this movie a few days ago and enjoyed it. The battle scenes are reminiscent of Waterloo. (Sergey Vasilyev is another Sergei Bondarchuk, who directed Waterloo, which is underrated, in my view). The battle scenes easily match up to Waterloo spectacle. The battles of Pleven and Shipka were well-done. As for propaganda, I found that there was very little (if any). The only propaganda I found was how they displayed the Ottomans as perpetrating war crimes against the Bulgarian people while the Russians as liberators of Bulgaria from her cruel masters. In reality, both sides committed war crimes.

Aside from this, people generally commented that they detected propaganda centered around the incompetence of the Tsar and his bureaucracy. But how is this different from The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968 film) which theme was about the folly of war? Perhaps the Tsar's leadership was a mess during that time? Even if it is criticizing the Tsar, the film puts him in good light at the end and, this does not detract from the idea of what the film was trying to convey: that Russia at this time was fighting for the freedom of the Bulgarian peoples. Overall, the film was good and any history buff could enjoy this movie.