Art
10-13-2021, 08:28
Very entertaining and well done, though fictionalized 2015 Russian film, about Soviet sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko. It switches back and forth from her combat exploits in the battles of Odessa and Sevastopol to her propaganda tours of the United States, Canada and the U.K. It includes a number of major and minor historical events from the period including but not limited to her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt, Woody Guthrie's wartime song about her, and her multiple combat wounds. The movie is also true to social attitudes of the times good and bad, regarding the place of women.
Acting and production values are well above average and the woman who plays Pavlichenko resembles her.
There are brutal graphic combat images in this one, at one point, for example, Pavlichenko tortures a German stringing telephone wire before the man is finished off by her superior. She is the victim of an attempted rape by another Soviet soldier, and is kept in action long after she should have been evacuated for her multiple and serious combat wounds (definitely not unusual in the Red Army of WWII.)
Among the fictitious incidents are her family background (her father was a locksmith not an army officer,) the obligatory sniper duel in which her opponent looks a lot like Hitler, her relationship with a Jewish doctor admirer and multiple romantic themes involving her and others. The Soviet Union looks just a little too happy as well though a Russian emigre in the US calls her out about Stalinist abuses and Soviet wars of aggression in Poland and Finland.
She died of a stroke at 57. From what we know she was almost surely one of those who died from the war but not in the war. In addition to multiple wounds including head injuries she suffered from severe PTSD and alcoholism probably related to it at least in part.
It can be seen in full in Russian with English subtitles on youtube.
Acting and production values are well above average and the woman who plays Pavlichenko resembles her.
There are brutal graphic combat images in this one, at one point, for example, Pavlichenko tortures a German stringing telephone wire before the man is finished off by her superior. She is the victim of an attempted rape by another Soviet soldier, and is kept in action long after she should have been evacuated for her multiple and serious combat wounds (definitely not unusual in the Red Army of WWII.)
Among the fictitious incidents are her family background (her father was a locksmith not an army officer,) the obligatory sniper duel in which her opponent looks a lot like Hitler, her relationship with a Jewish doctor admirer and multiple romantic themes involving her and others. The Soviet Union looks just a little too happy as well though a Russian emigre in the US calls her out about Stalinist abuses and Soviet wars of aggression in Poland and Finland.
She died of a stroke at 57. From what we know she was almost surely one of those who died from the war but not in the war. In addition to multiple wounds including head injuries she suffered from severe PTSD and alcoholism probably related to it at least in part.
It can be seen in full in Russian with English subtitles on youtube.