Tobruk

One by one the Eastern European movies are drawing line with Hollywood, especially in the badly neglected production value department. The best example, together with a couple of solid Hungarian and Polish attempts, are probably Night Watch, Day Watch or The 9th Company from Russia. The fourth one to catch up is the once great Czech cinematography. Tobruk is certainly no Private Ryan or Pearl Harbour, neither budget-wise nor fun-wise, but it sure looks and feels damn good, especially the music and sounds (divx is a poor option, must see in decent Dolby movie theatre!). It's probably not the best choice for pure action flick lovers and blockbuster addicts, Tobruk is too lengthy, austere and broody for that, more in the The Thin Red Line style or - perhaps more fittingly - All Quiet on the Western Front. But for real war movie lovers it makes it up with some really mean and gory scenes, 0% cheesiness and uncompromising WWII North Africa authenticity - and you can never get enough of those, am I right? :)

This narrow insight into the famous battle of the North African Campaign during the Second World War could just leave you cold. Agreed, there generally aren't too many productions about the (Czecho)Slovakian participation in the war but I have to say that Dark Blue World was simply the better and the more interesting movie. Maybe I was just too much disappointed by the advertising of the film that promised to consider the whole battle but this film presented only very small portion of the action. More highlighted were some shocking twists of a runaway soldier, which maybe have a fair anti-war purpose but then the movie should have had entirely a different name than "Tobruk". Avoid this if you want to see a film about the battle of Tobruk; and watch this if you were looking for a film about war in bare bones.

There was a FRench movie called "Un Taxi Pour Tobruk" in the early sixties but it has nothing (or almost nothing to do with "Tobruk" except for the historical context).Based on a true story ,it deals with the plight of young Czech volunteers who were sent to war without any training.This is a situation which is still happening today when even children become recruits.This is a realistic depiction ,not very story like ,sometimes close to documentary ,depicting the sufferings and the small joys (the mail is one of their one pleasures but some of them do not receive any letters ).Even the cliché,as old as the hills ,of the sarge with a heart of stone,is avoided.Not exactly an entertaining movie ,but an honest one ,which shows war for what it is : young men dying when their life has barely begun.

What this movie lacks is a story, a dramatization, in other words a script. It is not enough to put together a couple of classical anti-war scenes that we have already seen in scores of movies (like for example when a grenade hits and instantly amputates both of a soldier's legs, reminiscent of Black Hawk down), add to that some clichéd soldier behavior (very similar to Jarhead and other movies) and expect this to make for a good film. As a result we couldn't care less what happens to any of the protagonists, we do not have a sense of what is happening on the battlefield and why (even if one knows his history) and we are left empty when the movie finally ends.

On a more positive note, what really is excellent in this movie is the cinematography (reminds me very much of David Lean) and sound (the artillery barrages really sound convincing). This alone however is nowhere nearly enough to elevate this movie to anything but below average.

This excellent movie follows the Czechoslovakian soldiers who fought with the Allies in the Desert War during World War 2. Do not expect a glorification of the entire Tobruk battle. This is the story of a particular group, and what they experienced. This is an updating of the Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane - a story based on the realization by a young man of exactly what war is.

The young man's ideas of honor and the fight for a moral imperative are destroyed by the horrors of the war. This story brings home exactly what troops went through in those battles.

We watched with subtitles, but even without knowing the language, the actors brought the meaning through the language barrier.

Special effects are amazing. There is full frontal nudity during a shower scene, and horrific - but not out of place - gore.