Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

One of the great anti-war films ever made, hardly known in the West. Hard to follow if you know nothing about the Russian Civil War but this does not detract in the least. A fascinating film, beautifully acted, and with some fantastic war scenes. And the late, great Oleg Yankovsky, Russia's greatest actor and one of the five greatest of all time, is brilliant in one of his first big roles. Should be studied in all classes of Russian history. As powerful a film as Paths of Glory, All Quiet on the Western Front and The Human Condition.SPOILERS!!! The last three scenes, excluding a brief coda, are very upsetting! A White soldier, having one shot left in his rifle before leaving the conflict, randomly shots and kills a Russian soldier (Yankovsky) who is a man of peace. A group of White Russans, surrounded and backed into the sea, refuse to surrender and march into the surf and die. Most do this at first and, finally, they all do. I think this is based on a true incident. Lastly is one of the most heartbreaking scenes ever filmed. A soldier, getting on a passenger ship to escape the war, cannot take his horse on the evacuation ship, though he tries. The horse, frightened, now runs back and forth on the pier, not knowing what to do. Finally he jumps into the sea and tries to follow the departing ship and drowns. The scene is almost unwatchable.You can do much worse than try this Yankovsky film.

Maybe it's the best Soviet movie that ever appeared. The date is 1920, when the White armies were finally defeated and driven out by Bolsheviks. The ultimate battle took place in Crimea, a small peninsula in the South Russia. We can see the battle from different points of view. Four central actors are astonishing. Yankovski, as a intellectual who fights for the Revolution but cannot blindly believe in its ideology; Bykov, playing a real Red commissary, naive as a child, cruel and enthusiastic; Vysotski, a White officer, disillusioned and sardonic; Savvina, a White nurse, patriot of Russia and of 'White cause'. Many episodes will stay in your memory forever, as, for example, the White officers who enter the sea, preferring death to giving up. The movie is enlightened by a wonderful sense of humor - sometimes simple and robust, when coming from Red soldiers, sometimes elegant and melancholic with the noble officers.