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IMDbPro

L'Etoile

Original title: Zvezda
  • 2002
  • 1h 37m
IMDb RATING
6.9/10
2.9K
YOUR RATING
Igor Petrenko in L'Etoile (2002)
ActionAdventureDramaHistoryWar

During World War II the Red Army sends a special unit named "Zvezda" ("The Star") on a mission to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Germans in the Soviet Union.During World War II the Red Army sends a special unit named "Zvezda" ("The Star") on a mission to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Germans in the Soviet Union.During World War II the Red Army sends a special unit named "Zvezda" ("The Star") on a mission to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Germans in the Soviet Union.

  • Director
    • Nikolay Lebedev
  • Writers
    • Aleksandr Borodyanskiy
    • Evgeniy Grigorev
    • Emmanuil Kazakevich
  • Stars
    • Igor Petrenko
    • Artyom Semakin
    • Aleksey Panin
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.9/10
    2.9K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Nikolay Lebedev
    • Writers
      • Aleksandr Borodyanskiy
      • Evgeniy Grigorev
      • Emmanuil Kazakevich
    • Stars
      • Igor Petrenko
      • Artyom Semakin
      • Aleksey Panin
    • 25User reviews
    • 7Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 8 wins & 9 nominations total

    Videos1

    The Star
    Trailer 0:26
    The Star

    Photos9

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    Top cast22

    Edit
    Igor Petrenko
    Igor Petrenko
    • Lt. Travkin
    Artyom Semakin
    Artyom Semakin
    • Pvt. Vorobiev
    Aleksey Panin
    Aleksey Panin
    • Sgt. Kostya Mamochkin
    Aleksey Kravchenko
    Aleksey Kravchenko
    • Sgt. Anikanov
    Anatoliy Gushchin
    • Pvt. Bykov
    Amadu Mamadakov
    • Pvt. Temdekov
    Yuriy Laguta
    • Sgt. Brazhnikov
    Ekaterina Vulichenko
    • Pvt. Katya Simakova
    Andrey Egorov
    Andrey Egorov
    • Capt. Andrei Barashkin
    Sergey Miller
    Sergey Miller
    • First Captured German
    Gennadi Vorotnikov
    • Second Captured German
    Aleksandr Efimov
    • Third Captured German
    Aleksandr Naumov
    • Serbichenko
    Alexander Diachenko
    Alexander Diachenko
    • Galiev
    • (as Aleksandr Dyachenko)
    Oleg Gushchin
    • Likhachyov
    Ivan Kokorin
    Ivan Kokorin
    • Meshchersky
    Aleksandra Chichkova
    • Communications Servicewoman
    Sergey Rudzevich
    Sergey Rudzevich
    • Communications Serviceman
    • (as Sergei Ruzayevich)
    • Director
      • Nikolay Lebedev
    • Writers
      • Aleksandr Borodyanskiy
      • Evgeniy Grigorev
      • Emmanuil Kazakevich
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews25

    6.92.9K
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    10

    Featured reviews

    Dada_Tonya

    Lovely Music portrays Katya

    Hi!

    Zvezda got two golden eagle (zolotoi oryol) prize for best cinematography and best music for Russian movies of 2002.

    Theme music by guitar solo or strings orchestra portrays romantic love feeling of Katya, a young female soldier in front head quarter communication unit who loves "Zvezda" scout team leader lieutenant Trabkin.

    Beside this is a serious and precise war combat story, this is romantic love story with lovely music.
    10videoflk

    This movie could make millions, if released with english subtitles

    Properly marketed, may be with a dubbed option, for english and french,this movie has great box office potential. Specially in the wake of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, BAND OF BROTHERS, THIN RED LINE and WINDTALKER, this movie has in no way to hide behind those titles. The script is excellent, kept me right in the seat, the cinematagrophy stunning, and I was amazed with the historical details of the uniforms and military hardware. I would give it a 9+ rating, or two thumbs way up, as Siskel and Ebert used to do. The russians know how to craft the best war pictures, why are they not releasing them via box office, or at least for the north american homme video and DVD market ? I'm very impressed, and I would like to point out, that you can get this movie on VHS, in it's russian only version. Some of my friends watched it without any knowledge of the russian language, and loved it. The action is so intense in this movie, that it explains itself.
    7monsieurfairfax

    Earth to the Star

    The Star' might not be the most sophisticated war movie out there, but it was an exciting thrill ride. It quite never achieves the epic proportions compared to some better Hollywood and (Soviet) Russian was movies. Although we are not given much time to get introduced with characters, the heroes, and what makes them tick, are established quickly. Not much build-up - we are thrown into the action quite quickly. Still, there is enough room for the obligatory love story. Luckily that doesn't feel forced. The characters develop along with the story. We were given just the faces and names, but who these men really were, we learned while they moved towards behind the enemy lines.

    Tight directing, perfect pacing and, timing with great acting makes this 'on the budget' movie edge of your seat thrill ride. Here I can't say that this is the only Russian war movie you should see, but it definitely belongs among the best (modern) Russian war movies.

    P.S. I couldn't go without noticing that Aleksey Kravchenko's similarity with David Lynch is uncanny.
    10Ivaylo

    In memory of 20 million lost lives

    Russians always knew how to make a film about the World War II. This war is a large and deep scar on the hearts of all Russians, they suffered that war and they won it with the sacrifice of a whole nation.

    In the former USSR and now Russian Federation there is a lot of young filmmakers who probably have grandfathers or fathers who are war veterans or lost their lives in the most fierce battles in 1941-1943...

    That's why the memories are still alive and the pain is still fresh... It is needful to feel all this pain if you'd like to produce a film, which is able to make you understand even with just a tiny bit of your heart the meaning of the word "war" and what it's like to have no way back...
    FilmFlaneur

    A Star that Shines Brightly

    Based on a book by Emmanuil Kazakevich, and derived from his own wartime experiences, The Star (aka: Zvezda) has a hardly original plot. One can easily think of war films in which a group of handpicked men are sent out on a suicidal mission, the successful conclusion of which thousands of allied lives depend upon; operations during which contrasting character types inevitably emerge and personal sacrifice is the norm. In interview, director Lebedev has stressed how little he knew of war cinema before he made his film, and such innocence is one reason why he's able to bring a fresh eye to some of the stereotypes, which are nowhere near the distraction that some critics have claimed. But ultimately the real strength of his film lays less in the formulaic plot than in how the director plays with the incidentals, and creates some striking moments as he does so. And despite Lebedev's blithe disavowal's, for alert viewers at least, there's some fun discovering echoes of another, much greater Russian war film, in fact the benchmark for such cinema: Come And See.

    One of Travkin's crack team is Anikanov, played by none other than actor Aleksei Kravchenko, who played the boy hero of Klimov's masterpiece so memorably. A decade or two along in his career, he provides a much more mature presence here, and recognising the actor is in itself an apt process. Lebedev's film is set in much the same countryside, amongst the forests of Belorussia. Kravchenko's presence at the heart of the action brings the boy survivor of the earlier cinematic holocaust back, still obeying the essential call to arms, still resolutely hounding the cruel invaders out of the Motherland. Other moments also recall the earlier production: there's a swamp scene, during which the unit, Anikanov included, are almost lost up to their chins in the filthy water while avoiding a German patrol. Elsewhere, one or two scenes contain casually shocking images which have a familiar, brief intensity, such as the naked bodies of tortured soldiers floating down the river, or a brief glimpse out of a truck window at hanged villagers. And just like Klimov's film, Lebedev ends his own on an image of massed Soviet soldiery, marching implacably towards the foe.

    That's not to say that the current work does not offer memorable enjoyment of its own too. During the fraught reconnaissance behind enemy lines, 'Star' patrol face purely military challenges, which are different from the civilian hell of Come And See. The present film is proactive towards the enemy, whereas Klimov's is mostly reactive. Lebedev's Star shines best at such times of difference, notably the film's main set piece, the bombing attack on the railway station which is well choreographed, and reminded me of the one in Frankenheimer's equally as good The Train. There are also moments where the cinematography and direction are, frankly inspired: one thinks of the rain falling on the muddy, pale face of a just-fallen comrade, washing him clean of the filth of conflict, or an extraordinary death scene of another solder, taken from a vantage point of camera strapped to the actor's chest. Most impressive of all, there's the striking crane shot, which takes the eye from the barn where the unit are hiding, up, across, and through trees from whence advancing Germans appear.

    The 'star' of course comes to mean various things during the course of the film. One of the first things we see is a wartime flare, shooting its way through the night. When the impressionable radio operator Katya (Yekaterina Vulichenko) first appears, she's asked if she's from another unit "or just fallen from the sky?" And, as Russian speakers have noted elsewhere here, when on the radio, Katya hears her love, hero Travkin, say "ia zvezda" - which means both 'star speaking' as well as 'I am a star'. Finally, of course, a star is a point of reference, an inspiration perhaps, as well as the Soviet symbol on every uniform.

    If there is a weakness to the film it lays in that tentative relationship between Katya and Travkin, the romantic elements of which seem a both a little undeveloped and over wrought - especially when placed against the turmoil and tragedy elsewhere. What was presumably intended to be understated instead approaches triteness by the film's close, despite the best efforts of actors and score. One only has to remember the similar scenes between a female radio operator and a doomed military figure in, say, A Matter Of Life And Death, to see how close to cloying comes Lebedev's distantly communicating couple. The Russian director's professed wish to make something romantic out of the conflict (thus staying true to the sensibility of the source novel) ironically brings his film its weakest moments.

    Buoyed up by a splendid score by Aleksei Rybnikov, featuring solid performances throughout as well as a suspenseful narrative, The Star is well worth seeking out. The DVD includes some deleted scenes, a couple of interviews - including one with the young and modest director - but not a lot else. Lebdenev has since made a couple of less well received movies, including a fantasy epic, but the present film appears to be his best work so far.

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      The story was previously made in 1949 by Aleksandr Ivanov, but that version was banned and not released until after the death of Stalin.
    • Quotes

      Narrator: But every spring, every May,the souls of the fallen on the fields of Poland, Germany, and everywhere go back to their homes to see their blooming motherland they gave their lives for.

    • Connections
      Referenced in A pogovorit': Aleksei Panin (2023)

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    FAQ18

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    Details

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    • Release date
      • May 6, 2002 (Russia)
    • Country of origin
      • Russia
    • Languages
      • Russian
      • German
    • Also known as
      • The Star
    • Filming locations
      • Alabino, Moskovskaya oblast, Russia
    • Production companies
      • ARK-Film
      • Mosfilm
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Budget
      • $1,300,000 (estimated)
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 37m(97 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.66 : 1

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