That movie was pretty alright, and pretty damn sad.
I remember the old rabbi and how he suffered and one scene where a father is carrying in his daughter who's wrapped up in a blanket and is completely emaciated and sick. Shes seen a couple more times but after that we never learn of her fate or any of its details. That kinda stuff sorta sunk it. The problem was it tried to be schindlers list "plus we added explosions", it tries to invoke two emotional extremes on us. It might be pretty artistic in its own right but I guess not as entertaining.
It was pretty cool for showing stuff like partisens in the war and how fluid the eastern front could be...Belorussians forced into service either with german fascism or russian stalinism, neither of which appealing at all to people in Belorussia, 'White Russia', a traditional stronghold for orthodox christianity (neither system was tolerant to religion or religious practice - the one on extreme racial ideals and the other on extreme political ideals).
For instance when the one Ukrainian homeowner is initially a friendly character to the brothers, only for us to find out later that his general security situation has persuaded him to ally with the German occupiers...Only to THEN find out that his aid to the brothers gets him executed by the Germans for aiding partisans. Stuck in a major rock and a hard place, between two armies such as those. Shades of gray. Then think of that Ukrainian guy in the news lately for MAYBE being (no ones sure) a **** camp guard. His fate was the same, initially serving the soviets and then to the other side.
It should have concentrated MUCH MUCH MUCH more on their resource gathering and guerilla activities as it is their reason for surviving and their appeal to us for surviving such extreme hardship...Those brothers survived by living in that gray world, they stole and sapped and struck fast and disappeared like true guerillas. All social barriers were torn down and basic human survival was all that stood the test. The movie hints at it a few times but not nearly enough.
The last fight is total BS, theres no way in hell a column of tank supported infantry is going to be outflanked and destroyed by organized civilians with very light cover. In reality that tank charges forward and pierces that line if it can't get line of sight from the tree line, and sends people scattering and that infantry group either takes cover behind it or more probably advances in a long skirmish echelon, and thats if theyre taken by surprise, otherwise they wouldnt even leave the wood line seen in their rear. In the movie some bloke runs up and throws a grenade in the tank and disables it, while there are still infantry around! Thats what "panzer grenadiers" DID, they advanced under mutual support of armor. Instead the Germans just stand around like dumb pricks like stormtroopers out of Star Wars...Thats the other half of the movies main flaw, every faction of the movie couldn't have been more cookiecutter, like a made-for-movie comicbook of WW2 instead of the real thing. The other side of the same coin of suspended belief.
A sorta similar movie is Miracle at St Anna. While being similarly hoakie in its action scenes its a little better at playing out the general chaos and social extremes I think, its a decent watch on a boring weekend but no classic.
