Seuls les vieux vont au combat

a lovely film. few lines and a profound message. a war film but far to be another movie about heroic events and mounts of dead. it is poetry and music. homage and wise example to be more than political instrument. a film about human links, not complicated, about joy and sacrifices. a film of characters because each of them is a seductive sketch. a film about Soviet Union as a large family but without the veil of propaganda. it is strange its freshness. the explanation is simple - the values who defines ordinaries lives. the war is short, the music is eternal and this is the heart of its force and charm and science to present basic truth in perfect light, in the best form. nostalgic and tender. a slice from a great cinema school.

Decent ww2 film with good acting and captures the period. However I have watched Soviet war movies with much better action scenes with more authentic aircraft not post war trainers. And using newsreel battle footage instead of filmed stuntwork is cheap and weird given they use much better staged scenes in many of their ww2 films. They have the budget for this in 1974. I watch war movies mainly for the action not talking scenes. To give the filmmaker credit he offered sentimental memories and a believable atmosphere with funny moments. I have watched much more engrossing war movies than this however.

This movie is about war! Our war, that killed 30 million people. It is about love. Love which does have country borders or nationalism! It is about soviet heroes, who died letting us live. Who died fighting against Hitler! There is no Soviet propaganda, which makes it suitable for any generation and for any person. The main idea is people. Their relationships, their dreams, their believes, their sacrifice and tears. This movie let you think about war. It wont show you physical pain, it will show you inner grief. Watch it and think twice voting for people who start wars, who says that your nation is better, who let people die!

A good film about the sacrifices and stories of the Soviet Air Force in WWII. This saga of the struggle on the Eastern Front is truly one that will impress for decades to come. I regret that I had to finish the movie in a hurry, but I had a great time. I don't know if it was because of my affections towards the Soviet people during WWII, but I definitely won't forget them like the Western media. A great struggle like this deserves a great movie as a monument.

Hi !

This is very interesting WWII fighter pilots' film in international standard!

This fighter wing has own music band played by fighter pilots themselves and the "nose art" of the plane of wing leader is "music score".

Director and main actor, Leonid Bukov is one of very impressive actor in Soviet union 1960-70s era movies who usually took rolls of ordinary citizen or soldier in several films. He never took a roll of famous red army general.

Most of air battle scenes were taken from documentary films. This films focus on a life and death, happy time and sad time, of pilots themselves, and their love with lovely female pilots.

Also I feel special Ukrainian feeling in this film.(This film was made by Ukrainian movie studio during Soviet era)

Beside this one, another Soviet Union Fighter pilot film "Baltiskoe Nyebo" (means, Baltic Sky) is also impressive in different way which focus on the various relations between fighter pilots and citizens of Leningrad under German army's Blockade.