La chute de Berlin

I had the privilege of seeing the unreleased (as of this writing) DVD containing a restoration of the film utilizing the original negative. While the restoration isn't pristine (some scratches still appear), it manages to restore and maintain the coloration of the German Agfacolor stock that was used. Check out the comparison between the original and the restoration in the special features. The total film is 151 minutes long, split into two parts but I really didn't feel it bogged down too much. It is in Russian but has English subtitles.

There is some good outdoor cinematography especially in the scene that represents Germany's invasion of Russia, though most of the interior work is rather stilted with a few shots that show brilliance for its time period.

The score is brilliantly done by Dimitri Shostakovich befitting the epic scope that is presented.

As revisionist propaganda, this film was created as a valentine to Stalin for his 70th birthday presenting the Russian side of World War II and Stalin's steadfastness.For the most part though, the propaganda in the film is rather subtle in its views of the Allies, but blistering in its portrayals of Hitler, Gehring and Goebbels. Hilter is presented from the very beginning as a man who has already gone off the deep end (which I'm not sure is inaccurate). Though I must admit that it appears that the filmmaker was attempting to show that the British and the Americans did not care enough about the Russian front which was Stalin's view of their behavior in the war.

There is a framing device that drives the "story" along in a romance between a Russian steelworker and a Russian teacher. When the Nazi's invade, she is captured and taken to a camp and he joins the fight so that he can find her. We follow him through the major battles though the time line skips the negative parts of the war for the Russians and presents primarily their victories. He manages to be at every one including the Fall of Berlin which ends the film. Of course there is a happy ending as if there is any doubt about it. It appears that Russians of that time period used cliché story lines as much as Hollywood.

Most of the actors look creepily like the historical figures they are except the actor playing FDR. He was shown looking fairly frail which is not the image that we have of him in the US. The actor playing Stalin in the film had portrayed him in Russian films since 1939 and would continue to play Stalin in all but one of his films after this one. He is a dead ringer with Stalin's mannerisms down pat.

I have to admit that there were times that I laughed, especially at the portrayal of Hitler. The performance was so over the top at times that I half expected him to pull out some mustard to go with his scenery chewing.

Of course, being a propaganda film, the facts are skewed to favor Stalin and the Russians and even twisted to some degree. The Yalta meeting is a good example of that. There is also dramatized scene of Stalin arriving in Berlin to great acclaim that did not actually happen.

Overall it is a rarity that is interesting to film and WWII buffs who would like to see what the Russians thought of the US and the rest of world. I've watched many propaganda films through the years (both American and Eastern Bloc) but this one is truly epic in scope.

When this is released, I would recommend if you are interested in the subject to pick it up.

In his famous speech from the Party Congress of 1956 Nikita Khrushchev denounced the 'personality cult' of his former master, in whose crimes he must certainly have shared and referred to 'The Fall of Berlin' as a film in which 'Stalin acts for everyone.'

Designed as a gift to Uncle Joe on his seventieth birthday, this masterful piece of propoganda is essentially fantasy packaged as documentary truth in which he is portrayed by regular Stalin impersonator Mikheil Gelovani as a man of Olympian proportions, wise, benign, and a brilliant military strategist to boot. Supremely ironic therefore that the most interesting character in the piece is Hitler, given a superbly outrageous, pantomime villain performance by Vladimir Savelyev.

Viewed as either historical or hysterical this massive fresco is nevertheless an astounding achievement both technically and logistically by director Mikheil Chiaureli and his team and gloriously filmed in Sovcolor, derived from Agfacolor stock filched by the Red Army from Berlin. The score is by Dmitri Shostakovich who was, at the time, living largely on loans from friends whilst supplementing his income with film work and 'democratic' vocal pieces. His music for this is rather banal but contains a reference to the justly famous ostinato march from his Leningrad Symphony of 1942. Interesting to note that a few months after Stalin's eagerly awaited death in 1953, the composer premiered his Tenth Symphony in which the second movement is a blistering portrait of Stalin whilst the finale exhibits a joy and jubilation that Shostakovich never again allowed himself.

A character in the film proclaims that 'Stalin is always with us' and it beggars belief that flowers are still being laid on this mass murderer's tomb.

Perhaps not the most sophisticated film ever made about World War II, but this 1949 Soviet film is a rousing, solid, popular piece of filmmaking. Reportedly made as a present for Stalin's 70th birthday, who took great interest in its production, it was made with considerable production values (for that time) and in great Agfacolor film, taken as war reparation from the Germans. It's a propaganda film alright, but is very well made. As far as I know this was also the first fiction film dealing with the fall of Berlin (though the film, despite its title, deals with all the war in the eastern front, starting from the German invasion of Russia and not just its ending). I'm sure its intended audience – the Soviet masses who just have been through WW2, appreciated the movie. Hitler and his minions (who all speak in Russian in the film) are portrayed as grotesque, pathetic buffoons – but this is not necessarily a bad thing since they are the comic relief of the movie. Also fun is the portrayal of Roosevelt and Churchill at the Yalta conference, the American president is shown as naive and slightly befuddled, the British premier a mean, conniving old man. Stalin, meanwhile, is portrayed through the film as a wise, gentle, all knowing commander leading his country into victory (never mind his well recorded nervous breakdown at the start of Operation Barbarossa). Summing up, despite some historical inaccuracies, this is a very good film, especially for those interested in World War II (note: in this review, I deal with both part I and part II, since the division of the movie in two halves is artificial).

Historical drama. The film, shot "hot on the heels" of one of the largest military operations in the history of mankind, namely the Battle for Berlin in April-May 1945, directed by the renowned Soviet director Mikhail Chiaureli with the participation of famous Soviet artists, composers and talented screenwriters, and the whole team, thanks to which you and I can to see it now, many years after its release. It is even surprising that such a wonderful work passed by the author of this review. But fortunately, this misunderstanding was overcome, and the picture was viewed - and it left good impressions. And here is a brief opinion - The largest historical film of the Stalin era. The picture has both advantages and disadvantages (unfortunately), so you should finish this introduction and proceed to the analysis.

So, the advantages: 1. The script - if we forget about historical mistakes, then the script is good, because it shows the unity of the Soviet government and the people. Comrade Stalin and worker Ivanov, that's how the entire Soviet society stood up as one man to the enemy who invaded our land in 1941. An enemy who came to destroy most of us and enslave the rest, hiding behind the "racial theory", supported by occupied Europe and the ruling circles of England and the United States. This enemy was Fascist Germany under the leadership of Hitler. We will see the pre-war period, the battle for Moscow and Stalingrad, but mostly our attention will be focused on the battle for Berlin. They will show the work of the GKO and Hitler's command with his staff. We will see a wide canvas of the end of the fascist beast and the triumph of the Soviet people, the clash of worldviews, the hopes of both sides and the grandiose triumph of the Red Army and the entire Soviet people, and the wise words of Comrade Stalin (which were not listened to in the West, and after 1953 they were forgotten in our country).

2. Costumes and decorations - the scale of the painting is still amazing. Berlin and the Reichstag look so much like themselves that you can't believe it's a mock-up and not a real one. But this is exactly the case, because it was the layouts of all this that were built for filming. There's no need to talk about uniforms - everything was perfectly well known and the actors just had to play convincingly - and they played great.

3. I. V. Stalin - he is here all over the place - the chairman of the State Defense Committee, the supreme commander-in-chief, who sets common tasks in battles. You won't believe it - this is exactly what Joseph Vissarionovich was doing during the Great Patriotic War, no matter how many bad personalities claimed otherwise. Stalin is pragmatic here, fiercely defends the interests of the Soviet Union, helps our Western allies where possible, and in the end utters important and wise words that should have been listened to. The artist Mikhail Gelovani is great here. Bravo!

4. The battle scenes are great for 1948 and those primitive technologies. After all, the scale of the whole action is felt, and this is the pure truth. Our battles and battles with the fascists are presented abundantly, and they are well interspersed with scenes of the agony of the fascist regime.

So, the disadvantages: 1. Historical mistakes - Hitler began to get hysterical and behave inappropriately only after the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, and in 1941 he was quite a sane leader of Germany, so his tantrums during the Moscow battle look extremely funny, and the generals of his staff behave funny during the Battle for Berlin - they resemble clowns rather, than the military. Although Churchill took his position at the Yalta Conference, he so brazenly did not get into Stalin's proposals, which had already been agreed upon in Tehran. These are the largest of them. In general, there are enough historical errors, and this affects the final assessment.

2. The castrated version - the author of this review came across it, made already in Khrushchev's time, and the mounting glues are visible. The only good thing is that it wasn't possible to completely cut out Comrade Stalin - it's easier to just forget about the painting (and they tried to "forget" about it, it's good that they didn't succeed completely).

Boris Andreev as Alexey Ivanov and Marina Kovaleva as Natasha Rumyantseva are beautiful. They're a great couple who look amazing on screen. Other artists are also no less wonderful. It is clear that they tried their best. After all, do not forget that many of the paintings that were shot later on the same events, images and even entire scenes originate from here - the creators did so well!

Rating 8 out of 10 and recommended for viewing!

This of course is a pro-Stalin Russian film, but it has other values.First of all, for occidental public, and as many other Russian films of the 40's and 50's, it shows us the almost never watched Russian-side of the II World War.For them it was the "Liberation War", where they lost 18 to 21 million people, more than all the other nation's loses.Something we often forget or simply ignore, so this is an opportunity, from a mere historical view, to look at that "ignored" side of the big war. Keeping Stalin speeches, his battle planning and his final and incredible arrival to Berlin apart, the movie shows good epic moments:the final battle for the Reichstag, the surrender of the German troops in the streets of Berlin, the dialog between the "good worker and soldier" Aloisha with a German officer explaining how they will destroy his city and house as they did with their houses and cities, the final celebration before the(real)ruins of the Reichstag...And also the Hitler's scenes, which constitute a kind of "grand guignol", another movie inserted in the epic film.It's also interesting to see the theories (wether they be only partly true)about Nazis relations with English industrial trusts in the middle of the war, or Hitler's hope of an agreement with Anglo-Americans against Russians, anticipating the Cold War.We the Spanish know something about this, as the fascist Franco was kept in power by the allies, taking advantage of this cold war. "Padeniye Berlina", sometimes boring and a bit theatrical, contains these and many other good scenes, an attractive photographic work (with those Agfa color negatives, so different, but not less fascinating, from the accustomed American technicolor of the time), and a good score. And then , the Stalin omnipresence. But, sceptical as I am in relation to all political regimes, I don't think this propaganda film to be so different from other occidental films of the kind (war, patriotic ones). For me, it's good to get now the opportunity to watch many soviet films we couldn't even know of before the "DVD-era" arrived.They show less propaganda than we could expect (not in this film, of course)and let us know of their daily stories, or their war epics and miseries, so similar to the hundred of stories of American cinema with which we grew up.