Why does everyone instantly call this propaganda?
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brunofortunati — 12 years ago(November 07, 2013 06:37 AM)
I just so this film and i really liked it, its beauty is in the emotions it conveys.
I wanted to check the boards to see what people thought about it and the first post i see is yours, it hits the nail right on the head with what i felt during the film.
by bureau203
Well, it is propaganda, isn't it? Every film made in the Soviet Union was heavily censored, so on that level alone the film has no "truth value." The Soviets only allowed what they wanted filmmakers to say. All Soviet films are on some level propaganda, as the Soviet film industry was state-run.
I feel the same way as this guy except with the: the film has no truth value line, were he clearly goes too far. Truth is too much of a complicated concept to disregard the point of view of any source solely on account of it being censored or for that matter to intrinsically value as true or more truthful uncensored material. Truth, much too complex an issue.
I was expecting to see a soviet film showing their take on WW2 or simply their take on war as opposed to the western movies im so used to. Frankly i dont see no east-west distinction at this point, and i feel the truth this movies creators where concerned with is the truth the leading character discovers, which is, even thought war sounds cool when ure an inexperienced kid, it ultimately sucks big time! i feel we can all agree with that take in whats true.
I dont know what russians in 1985 felt when they so it but even if the soviet government was as bellicose as we know, they didnt censor this out of being one of the most intense anti war movies ive seen. Maybe thats my read and it was supposed to be principally anti nazi and exalt nationalism which i can see it doing too.
On the point of it being propaganda, im with bureau203, as far as we know the guy who had the job of reviewing this before it was allowed certainly thought it was. And i must say it started to feel like propaganda towards the end. The germans being portrayed as 100% evil certainly felt propagandist. 200 guys outside the building having a good time with the killing, not in a rush, there where going to use fire to save on bullets or avoid looking in the eye of the victims i was guessing, then they overkill with grenades and 1k+ rounds of bullets, while the officers where enjoying the show. None of the germans looked away or seemed to have any humanity left in them. A little too much maybe? well 600+ villages? this could not be the first one they torched, and the scene makes quite an impression like it is.
One thing that felt like propaganda was the restrain of the villagers when they had the germans under the bridge. One could expect them to rush into killing frenzy to finish them in wrath and vengeance, but no, they hold back even if one yells they took their kids lifes in the fire. Finally they exert unanimous mercy when they dont use the fuel to burn them and they all fire their guns. (I just rewatched Kurosawas Seven Samurai last night and man did he have a different take on villagers altogether
anyone who has seen it remembers how the samurai try to restrain them from killing subdued enemies but the angst for vengeance amongst them proves too much. I highly recomend Kurosawa for anyone interested in the topic of truth, war, or human conflict all around.)
Anywas, is it bad if this is propaganda? I guess its bad if people disregard its value for feeling it is, but its not my case. Movie makers are capable of delivering great truths and exaggerations no matter the level of censorship, or which side or set of ideas they might want to or have to defend. We dont say Saving Private Ryan is a propaganda movie and discredit it for that, maybe we dont see it as such because it wasnt censored or at least not in the same way we understand soviet era movies to be, but it clearly is a pro war movie.
Just to clear up this last point, Saving Private Ryan worked wonders for the US military when recruitment season started, how do you think this movie did on getting young men fired up to join the army in 85? Propaganda or not, which one carries greater truths? I dont know myself, but this doesnt make me appreciate either one of them any less. -
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nickolay-ilyin — 12 years ago(December 27, 2013 03:29 AM)
Let me cite a couple of reviews here:
1).
Besides being a failure as a film it is also a piece of Soviet propaganda. Indeed, it shows WW2 as "the nice Soviets versus the evil Germans", however, that is ludicrous. They depict the German soldiers as Nazi devils without any hint of humanity and driven by the sole purpose of exterminating the Soviet population. However, the truth is that German soldiers were people just like the Soviet civilians and while there were a few psychopaths in the SS, the vast majority were normal people.
This movie is not implicit propaganda, it is explicit propaganda of the Soviet regime.
The good WW2 films are always German or Japanese. Since losing the war make them more humble and they don't tend to depict their enemies as inhuman monsters.
2).
The director, Klimov, born in 1933, seems to never have seen a movie.
The third review (I haven't found it to cite exactly) even managed to advise Klimov to learn from Spielberg. Many people advice other Hollywood movies instead of "Idi I smotri". I'm not a Hollywood fan and "Schindler's list" is the only Hollywood movie about WWII I have seen but believe me Soviet film directors didn't have to learn from Hollywood how to do WWII movies. Rare Soviet movie of say, 1960s doesn't mention the war just because it's hard to imagine how it was possible that it didn't influence the movie heroes in the past. The number of specifically WWII movies was huge and there were different manners to show "Soviets versus the Germans". So many of them are real propaganda but this one? This movie is the most strange of Soviet WWII movies so even I being Russian often didn't understand what's going on and it's the first movie I even don't try to estimate here on IMDB. Still I think it's up to Klimov to choose his manner. Russian Wikipeadia's article about this movie describes Khatyn' - Byelorussian village that was reduced to ashes by SS and cites Klimov:
I thought then: Khatyn' is not known to the world. Katyn and the Polish officers' execution are known. But Byelorussia is not. Even while more than 600 villages were reduced to ashes! So I decided to create a movie about the tragedy.
The first cite above says that "it is explicit propaganda of the Soviet regime". How could it be that if there is no regime at all in this movie? There is no Red Army at all. There is only one partisan troop whose commander Kosach is described by the partisan in the Vermacht uniform in the beginning of the movie as the person who killed his own sleeping sentinel not even awakening him. Or Flyora is "Soviet regime" because he didn't make the last shot to baby Hitler?
"However, the truth is that German soldiers were people just like the Soviet civilians and while there were a few psychopaths in the SS, the vast majority were normal people." Some person clearly describes in a neighbour thread that there is certain difference between Vermacht soldiers and SS Sonderkommando. They reduced to ashes more than 600 villages only in Byelorussia and left photos of their behavior just as described in this movie. Look at the "Obyknovenniy fashizm" documentary movie and you'll see photos taken from SS soldiers or Gestapo that they stored near photos of their family members in the same manner as the one on "Idi I smotri" poster. Look at German parade chronicles e.g. in "Obyknovenniy fashizm" and you'll see not 200 "Nazi devils without any hint of humanity" but hundreds of thousands if not millions. They started thinking only when they become losing but still not all of them. "Obyknovenniy fashizm" director Romm describes that he saw a Shmidt Album. This SS member created an album where he accurately put personal and family photos and photos from executions he participated in. A polish director created a documentary movie based on this album after the war. Shmidt saw the movie and sent a letter from Western Germany to Warsaw: "I don't blame you for using my album but you probably don't need it anymore while it's dear to me, could you please send it back to me?" Is he also a normal person?
Many people say big parts of the movie are boring and they were just sleeping. Reviewer entej from Russian Federation!!! says he doesn't like Russian movies, estimates the movie as 3 starts out of 10 and asks several questions. The seventh question is why more people didn't leave the barn before it was fired. Wikipedia says that the most valuable source for the movie was a documentary book "Ya iz ogennoy derevni" (I am from a burned village) where several Byelorussian writers including Adamovich who was the script co-writer collected memories of witnesses. Its content made indelible impression on Klimov and he noted:
I will never forget the face and the eyes of one villager, his quiet-quiet story about the moment when whole his village population was put to the church and the Sonderkommando officer said "Who is without children - get out". He couldn't stand it and quitted leaving his wife and small children insid -
Jimmycakes — 12 years ago(January 24, 2014 05:10 PM)
Yeah the film is propaganda in the sense that the basic premise is evil national socialists annihilate communist village while listening to music and eating lobster. The way that it was done was for effect, not historical accuracy, it wasn't trying to tell us how the individuals on both sides behaved based on verifiable evidence. It gives us this shock and awe scene then at the end of the film tells us how many villages were attacked, trying to link the historical aspect to what we just witnessed, by that point the viewer is already taken back by the horrific church scene and will be outraged at national socialists. It's a great film to watch and no one is disputing deaths in villages, but there needs to be some perspective, the communists plundered their way through eastern Europe while pushing the national socialists back into Germany, killing anyone they thought collaborated and raping. The poor Poles thought they were going to be liberated by the communists. Their plight only just started.
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belarus2578 — 12 years ago(January 30, 2014 01:55 PM)
Of course, the lobsters and small animal (don't know an English word for it) and some other features were added into fhe film for grotesque. But, on the other side, it's difficult to call this movie ''propaganda-movie''. I'm a Belarusian, so I saw plenty of Soviet propaganda movies and I could say thar this one is rather neutral. And, of course, the topic of the film is really close for any Belarusian's soul. Brilliant movie.
If You want to read about the war with no heroes, about the behaviour of a man in extremal circumstancies, You'd better read the nowels of Belarusian writer Vasil' Bykaw (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasil_Bykaw). He was writing the truth, that's why KGB was watching him to the end of his life. -
Lyndhen — 12 years ago(February 08, 2014 02:43 AM)
Of course, the lobsters and small animal (don't know an English word for it) and some other features were added into fhe film for grotesque.
The monkey, music and drunkenness weren't actually added for grotesque. It seems the German unit is based on Dirlewanger. I don't know about the lobster though.
I've seen many arguments why people might think it's propaganda - ie the Germans weren't that bad - if it did happen it didn't happen often - anti-partisan units don't reflect the rest of the Wehrmacht - The soviets did commit their own fair share of crimes.
However, - the anti-partisan units were clearly that bad - it happened to hundreds of villages and one capital city (40,000 civilians murdered by Dirlewanger and Kaminski). The rest of the Wehrmacht might not have been burning people in churches but the intent was there - ie Hunger plan, Leningrad, treatment of Russian POWs etc.
Sure, the Soviets committed crimes and crimes against your allies are arguably worse than crimes against enemies. But the film doesn't depict heroes of the Soviet army and the NKVD fighting for Stalin - just an ordinary peasant - fighting to kill Hitler.
So I agree - it's quite neutral. -
franzkabuki — 12 years ago(February 07, 2014 06:05 PM)
"But there needs to be some perspective".
So what do you suggest? A subplot showing the Red Army performing comparable atrocities? A didactic voiceover over the end credits informing us of such occurrances?
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan -
sukotsuto — 12 years ago(January 25, 2014 09:00 AM)
At this point, nearly every piece of media created are simply different forms of propaganda. This is propaganda in such a way that it told a story that pretty much reflects the events of its time, but it's not a propaganda in a way that most other war movies spice up their movies with dramatization and glorification of combat. That's the one main reason why I would consider this above all other war movies.
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Teremov — 12 years ago(March 31, 2014 07:51 AM)
Your explanation is stupid and have no relation to the film. Belarus wasn't part of Europe - it was part of the USSR occupied by Nazis during the WWII. It has nothing to do with "poor Poles" or whatever. The film is based on interviews and documented events. And the director himself was never part of war or any other kind of propaganda - you must've confused him with Steven Spielberg. If anything, Come & See is an anti-war propaganda.
It's really confusing to see so many kids today accusing Soviet films of "anti-German propaganda". It's like a new thought was put into people's minds. Careful with that. -
Teremov — 11 years ago(September 18, 2014 08:36 AM)
I was answering the guy who implied that communists invaded European countries (countries outside of the USSR), and thus this film should be seen as propaganda. As I said, Belarus used to be part of Russia for ages. It is a Russian piece of history. Around 21 millions of Russians and Belorussians died during WWII. Poles or other offended nations have nothing to do with this film, simple as that.
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RoboKynotKy — 10 years ago(April 07, 2015 02:44 PM)
Propaganda my balls, nobody says anything positive about Stalin, and the comunist flag doesn't appears a single time.
Meanwhile American Sniper and it's ultra fake baby show the american flag f@+ing everywhere, and nobody considers it propaganda either (because it certainly is not).