This week I want to show you the two Russian movies about World World II I really like. The first one was made many years ago, before my birth. The other one is pretty modern, but somehow it keeps the old Soviet tradition of war movies – probably because it’s based on an book, which was piblished in 1973 (the year the first movie in this post was released).
Only “Old Men” Are Going Into Battle / V boi idut odni “stariki” / В бой идут одни “старики” (1973)
Genres/Tags: Comedy, Drama, War
iMDB Rating: 8.4 out of 10 (based on 4209 ratings)
Director: Leonid Bykov
Starring: Leonid Bykov, Sergei Podgornyj, Sergei Ivanov
Video format: YouTube
Languages: Russian Audio, English subtitles
Description
Bogdan Titarenko is very talented pilot and brave leader of “Singing group”. He also must look after some new cadets and fight together with them against German Luftwaffe planes. Close to Bogdan always are his friends, they are all from different parts of the country, but they all became real brothers.
Watch (Original Black & White)
Watch (Colorized Version, 2009)
In August of 1944 / V avguste 44-go / В августе 44-го (2001)
Genres/Tags: Comedy, Drama, War
iMDB Rating: 7.5 out of 10 (based on 1286 ratings)
Director: Mikhail Ptashuk
Starring: Evgeniy Mironov, Vladislav Galkin, Yuri Kolokolnikov
Video format: YouTube
Languages: Russian Audio, English subtitles
Description
The movie is set in Belarus, where a team of counter-intelligence officers is given only three days to find a German radio operator posing as a Soviet soldier, behind soviet lines, on the eve of a major offensive.
This movie can’t be called a pure “Russian” one, it’s a collaborative Belarusian-Russian production, but both Russians and Belarusians share the same history of fighting the nazis, so I’ve put it here.
