Generation War (Unsere Mutter, Unsere Vater; 2013) | Limited Series Review

 17/July/2022. Watched. 

 My rating: 9/10. 

 Every summer I tend to watch a lot of war movies; the hot weather does  incite the urge to return to the battlefields where the enemy is kill-able, unlike the heat wave. In 2020 I watched Schindler's List, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now etc. Band of Brothers in '21. The raucous atmosphere that war films create comforts me somehow. Call of Duty 2 was, I think, my proper introduction to World War 2. It was just amazing. It still is, to think that it actually happened. And watching something in this genre always brings back the memories of that game. "MG-42 BEHIND THOSE SANDBAGS!".

 I've always been fascinated with Nazis. The hoards upon hoards of nameless Germans that come in these games and movies in the form of "The Enemy" instilled a strong sense of curiosity in me. Why are they the bad guys? How can such a large population become a puppet for an extremist? These were some of the questions which popped into my young brain as a child. 

 Among my favorite films of all time is Inglorious Basterds (2009) in which the Nazi is shown as a weasel, a backstabber, a schemer and a beast. But, in War Generation, the Nazi is shown as a victim. At least some Nazis, the average soldier.  Even it's original title, "Unsere Mutter, Unsere Vater" (Our Mothers, Our Fathers) humanizes the supporters of NSDAP. Hitler, after all, like any other politician, was elected. 

 Consisting of only 3 episodes, an hour and a half each, it tells the story of 5 friends. A Lieutenant and his younger brother who is also conscripted in the war even though he has no interest in it for he is a reader and an intellectual. The other three being a singer, a nurse and a jew. War changes them. Brings out the worst.

 Now, the way its filmed is nothing revolutionary. As you'd imagine, it takes inspiration from Saving Private Ryan (1998) & Band of Brothers (2001). But the fact that it tells the story of the German side, in this very American manner of filmmaking, it helps you empathize with them that much more. And I love it for it. 

 Everyone of the five friends is screwed by their country in one or another. The soldiers are shell-shocked, the singer gets abused and gets thrown in prison, the nurse witnesses the horrendous aftermath of battles and the jew, well, y'know... Everyone is humanized. The nurse, who was the sweetest person in the beginning, says some racist stuff and commits a sin which she later regrets. But you understand them. You feel sorry for them. Its a tragedy that they were indoctrinated with such hatred. After all, they are your mothers and fathers.

 Even though melodrama is found here in spades, it works. It has a strong sense of earnestness to it. It did made me well up. The cast here is terrific. The ones who caught my attention the most were Miriam Stein (Charlotte the nurse) and Ludwig Trepte (the jew). Sylvester Groth, who played Joseph Goebbels in Inglorious Basterds also showed up as a stone cold SS officer. A couple of days ago, I randomly started watching a German series, Deutschland '83, and I was so happy to see that Groth and Trepte had roles in that show. I just might continue watching it. 

 The show boasts of some great set pieces and action sequences. There's a scene where partisans hide and wait to ambush a train going to a death camp. In another, civilians are forced to walk through a mine field to clear the way for the German soldier. Another had the trenches and the camp bombed because one of the main characters kept smoking even after noticing an enemy aircraft. But the most impressive thing for me was it's editing and how it maintained a rapid pace and intensity throughout its four and a half hour runtime.  

 Unsere Mutter, Unsere Vater is an essential watch if you're interested in the genre. My neck and my back hurts, I shouldn't type on the bed anymore. Oh well...

Paths of Glory (1957) | Review

 9/July/2022. Watched. 

 My rating: 8.5/10. 

 Stanley Kubrick has always been one of those directors whose filmography I've been pushing off for the longest time. I talked about the reason behind it in the piece I wrote about Bergman's Persona (1966); the fact that I wish to appreciate them as much as everybody else. Thankfully, I've now shed that worrisome trait and now I'm ready to confront all films head on. 

 Paths of Glory is my fourth Kubrick film. I can't remember whether the first one was The Shining (1980) or 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) (I'd wager on TS being the first). Then, after a two years gap, I watched Full Metal Jacket (1987) on the 8th of April, 2020; by this point I had begun writing reviews on Letterboxd, hence the exact date. Its 9th of July, 2022, and once again after a dry spell of two years I plunge into his movies.

 POG tells the true dramatized story of three soldiers who were court-martialed and were charged with cowardice, all because of the foolish commands of the higher-ups. Kirk Douglas, whom I last saw in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), plays Col. Dax, of the French army who tries his best to save his men.

 The film begins with credits with white glow around the text, the sort you see in movies from the Citizen Kane era; 1940s. Because of that, and the way the actors spoke and the way the scenes were blocked, the way it's scored, the flick feels ten years older than it really is (1957). Rather Hitchcockian. When you look at this film and then look at Full Metal Jacket, its unbelievable how much Kubrick was able to evolve the age.

 It's sets did hinted at a tight budget. I don't mean to say that their quality was subpar, but what I mean to say is that they were quite economical. The trenches, the halls, the wires, most of the frames use darkness to lend themselves to infinity. To make the world feel real, landscape shots are put in place and the most lavish the sets ever get are in the halls in which Dax talks with his superiors or in which aristocrats participate in ball dances while young men tango with death on the front line.

 Young men. A gripe that I've with World War movies is that they cast actors in their 30s, 40s and 50s as soldiers. Most of the soldiers who volunteered or were conscripted were very young, barely men; 17, 18, 19, 20 year old boys. Many of them hadn't even begun shaving yet. And in the history of warfare, that's always been the case. The "elders", the "wise" men, the leaders encourage their sons to go die in the wars. For glory, for king, for country. 

 In one very tense scene, Col. Dax in an argument with his General quotes Samuel Johnson; "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel" I find it to be so true. Fanatical patriotism and pride in one's own race and religion can be observed in the current political climate of India. And its frustrating to see the idiocy of these self proclaimed virtuous beings. All over the social media, on my feeds, in my friend list, I can't go a day without witnessing such behavior. It makes me sad, because they're my friends, family, and the fact that they've been so indoctrinated by social media, which acts as an echo chamber, clearly skews their perspective. I'm certainly virtue signalling right now, even though I don't mean to.

 That's the thing, innit? You can't change anyone's mind once it's made up. I've seen people write "Brahman, "Thakur", "Muslim" in their Instagram bios. And each time I wanna ask them, "Is that where your personality ends? Is that where your whole being ends? Is that all you are, a made up category that you've boxed yourself into?" And when because of your own foolishness you end up discussing it, they get incredibly aggressive and start using abusive ad hominem. It sours the relationship. They value a belief more than a relationship. Humans don't like to be wrong. Which is understandable, because once upon a time, in the jungle, being wrong meant death. People need to stop marrying their ideas.

  The loss of empathy is the greatest casualty of war and this effect can be seen reproduced on the battlefields of social media; the place where we're bombarded with opinions and "news" and virtue signalling and pretense and the fake relationships. 

 Coming back to the film which was banned in France until 1975 for it's critique of the French army, the shot which I must mention here is when Dax falls back to the trenches to encourage the men who stayed behind to proceed. The camera moves with him with the trench walls shifting on the sides. Dead men lay around with their bayonets. Above, a few shells drop and dirt and smoke puffs up in clouds and one of the dead men blinks and flinches at them. He got scared whilst dying. The same could be said about the many men who fought in the wars. Terror eats them hollow like a webbed fly.

 And I don't think that the blink was a mistake either, because Kubrick is the sort of guy who shoots a million takes until he gets it right. That whole sequence, especially the first shot, is the money shot.

 This paragraph contains a spoiler. The three prisoners are executed at the end I was fully expecting Douglas to save the day because of the film's 1940s' look. And the bar scene at the end where the French soldiers are shown as uncivilized savages as they harass a young German woman and force her to sing. But once she starts singing and the boys fall silent and soon begin humming with her and welling up with tears, the audience realizes that the barbarous behavior is but a facade under which they've concealed their empathy. Their humanity. For there is no place for sentimentality in the battlefield.  

 The soldiers' tears act both as the evidence of the goodness within and the only catharsis the film provides us with.

 Before I end this piece, I must say that Kirk Douglas is the man! So cool. He reminds me of Steve McQueen.

 Paths of glory is a very literary film, not only because it was adapted from Humphrey Cobb's novel of the same name, but also because Stanley Kubrick is a director with literary sensibillities. His films feel like going through some prestigious prose.

Come and See (1985) | Review

  29/June/2022 Watched. 

 My rating: 10/10. 

 As of this moment, it has been almost 48 hours since I watched Come and See. The film feels so much bigger than me. Its intimidating to write about it. Can I do it justice? I cannot. But I must record my thoughts nonetheless. 

 Come and See is a Soviet World War 2, anti-war film that came out in 1985. It depicts the invasion of the German forces upon Byelorussia and how they burned and pillaged and raped through more than 600 villages and killed almost every single one from them. Elem Klimov's (the director) mind was forever scarred with the war that he saw in Stalingrad and thus he wanted to make a serious film about it. He once noted that, and I'm paraphrasing here, "The film will not be seen by anyone. It won't make money. But it needs to be documented." And I love that sentiment, that passion about any form of art.

 Ales Adamovich was a Soviet-Belarusian writer who, among many other of his works, penned the 1971 novel, Khatyn, in which he incorporated his experiences of the war as a teenager. The novel followed a 14 year old boy named Florian who joins the partisans and meets his future wife Glasha. Ales later wrote the screenplay for Come and See which was, though not an adaptation, but quite similar to his novel. Come and See was originally titled, "Kill Hitler" but the Soviet government censored it because it came off as inappropriate for the time. And I do think that the current title is a better one.

 The film chooses the point of view of a fourteen year old boy to tell its story. The young teenager is named Florya, and like his name, he has feminine features - like most young boys do - and looks a bit younger for his age. The film begins with an old man shouting at, what seems like, the air to, "Stop digging!" We then find out that he was warning the young Florya and his younger friend who had hid themselves in the reeds. What are they digging for? Why is the man trying to keep them from digging? 

 Florya's friend, small in stature, walks out of the reeds and starts to fleer at the man by imitating him in an inhumane voice, sounding almost mechanical, robotic. Like the kind of sound those little machines make which are used by throat cancer patients to speak with. Annoyed by the child's behavior, the man leaves, warning them that they've been warned.

 We then see the two boys dig and dig and dig some more, ripping a rifle out of the sandy ground. Their faces light up in exulation, for Florya can now join the partisans and become a real man of glory and purpose. 

 In the 21st century, the roles have been reversed to some extent. The youth is now warning the elders to not only stop digging, but to bury what they've already dug up. Whether it be extreme patriotism, racism, homophobia or any other vice that you can think of, its high time that bury them and our tribalism and move forward with an enlightened spirit unity. But that's naive, unrealistic. And you know it.

 Florya's mother tries to stop him from joining the partisans but to no avail. With a stupid, adolescent smile on his face, Florya is taken to the camp that they have set in a forest and it is there that he meets a girl his age named Glasha, with whom (like war) he seems instantly smitten by, but later on he realizes that something is off with her. 

 In the camp he is given menial tasks, such as keeping vigil and cleaning the cauldron. To clean it, he must climb into it, thus becoming an ingredient for the witchcraft of war. Glasha even showers him with flowers and grass whilst he looks at her, confused. 

 He takes a picture with the partisans then later on all of them fall in lines to march towards their enemies, but Florya is ordered to exchange his shoes with an old man and remain at the camp with Glasha. His heart breaks. He can't join the battle yet.

 The young boy and the girl, all alone in the jungle, become friends and start playing within the vegetation when they get bombarded and the explosions leave Florya with a ringing in his ears, and we experience the tinnitus with him through the visceral sound design. This must've been the first time that effect was used which is now so ubiquitous in war movies.

 The film keeps on rolling and we return to the boy's house but no one is to be seen. Florya makes up his mind that his family must've fled to an island within the bog and drags Glasha with him through the thick bogland which comes off as an act of pure desperation. But before that, the point of view switches from the boy to the girl who see dead bodies piled up behind Florya's house, but she doesn't tell him that right than and there, but waits till they've reached the island to let him know that his family is dead.

 The thing which makes this scene so powerful is that we don't see the closeup of the bodies. We never actually see the close up of any of the atrocities. We see them in our peripheral vision for a moment and then they're gone from the screen but etched in our mind.

 Most of the film is shot with a steadicam. But at no point does it come off as an experiment within the documentary style. Rather, it makes us not only a witness, but a survivor of the events. Many shots are filmed in first person perspectives of more than one character, which is so interesting to me because so many of us experience World War 2 in first person through video games. The medium evolves, the techniques remain.

 Our boy, witnessing the war, starts to look like a premature adult. By the end of the film his face is wrinkled and his hair turns thin and many of them silvered. And it was not the result of a fantastic makeup artist, but that the film was shot chronologically and the experiences that the young actor, Aleksei Kravchenko, went through affected his mental and physical health. 

 For instance, the gunfire used in the film used live ammunition. Real bullets were flying 5 inches from the actors' heads. That is very irresponsible but very effective filmmaking. One one hand, you must struggle with the ethics of it all. On the other though... you get an aural and visual experience of the battle like never before. 

 The director, Elem Klimov hired a hypnotist to protect Aleksei's young mind from the scenes but as you might've guessed, the hypnotist failed and we got the performance of a life time. 

 A cow dies in this film for real, like . Is it any more evil to kill a cow for a movie than it is to kill it for food? Food for thought. 

 Later on the barn scene echoes the gas chambers of the holocaust, in which the villagers are herded in a big barn (or was it a church?) only to be locked in. And then the set the structure on fire and it's doors heave vehemently. But no one gets out. And the Nazis, delighted at the sight, laugh and eat lobsters. 

 I'll never call the Nazis and their kin beasts. It relieves them of their sins. But in pain, that is all that one can do. 

 The film, to not leave us in a cynical and depressed state, decides to punish the perpetrators and provide some level of catharsis, even though it admits in a soul-shaking sequence which follows that it is impossible to turn back the time, no matter how persistent you are. You can't change the past. The past can change you. 

 Its aesthetically very similar to the Claude Lanzmann's documentary, Shoah, which gives it that much more sense of credibility. Shoah was a documentary about the holocaust it was shot over the span of 11 years. Both of the films, with their lush, green landscapes, shrouded in mist and dew, makes you feel like you've been there to those sacred place. Forgive me, for I exaggerate; there's nothing sacred about the war. Except the wisdom that it gives birth to.

 Its Wilfred Owen-esque critique of the tragedy paints it the waste of it all in a very raw and honest manner. Schindler's List's ending romanticized the ending just a bit with it's Hollywood ending; and it works for it. But this film just presents it all as it was. And perhaps that's why this was Elem Klimov's final film.

 War is a blunt knife trying to penetrate fresh, dead leather. Cursed to be engaged in this futile effort forever. 

 Come and See is not a film about the war. It is the war.