Torpedo Bombers (1983)

“We”ll fix you up with a parachute.”

The marvellous 1983 Soviet film, Torpedo Bombers (Torpedonostsy), from director Semyon Aronovitch is a homage to the Soviet pilots and crews who lost their lives during WWII in their fight against Germany. For the film’s intense look at the lives of these men, Torpedo Bombers is a unique film, and the cinematography of shots of the men in their planes is simply incredible.  Brilliant, stunning shots depict the planes’ navigators in close quarters; other shots depict planes in flames–one in a kamikaze dive in a last-ditch effort to destroy the enemy. Other close-ups show faces inside smoking planes, and then shots of a plane disintegrating and falling from the sky. The Soviet planes must fly in close to drop their torpedos, so these missions tend to have a suicidal edge. This incredible film is based on the stories of Yuri German.

It’s 1944, and the film opens with the report of a “fascist convoy” in the area, so crews scrambles, planes are prepared and then take to the skies. Some shots give us an idea of the rudimentary nature of life on the base, and many of the pilots and crews have their families there with them. There’s a downside to this which becomes evident as the film continues.

Torpedo Bombers throws us right into the action, so the story can be a bit disorienting at first until you get your bearings. Many characters are introduced summarily through barked out orders, or called out greetings, and it’s not initially easy to place just who’s who. The relationships between the ranks seems casual and friendly. There’s the sense that life on the base wouldn’t be bad at all–if it weren’t for the threat of imminent death. As one man says, “Life could be so simple, so pleasant. War is so ugly.”

While the plot explores aspects of the lives of a handful of characters, the main story revolves around Sasha Belobrov (Rodion Nahapetov) who’s just returned from 3 months leave after being injured. He returns back to the remote Northern base to discover that the woman he loved has married another man. Another sub-plot concerns Sgt  Cherepets (Aleksei Zharkov), a man who falls in love with a kitchen worker named Maroussia (Tatyana Kravchenko) but is uncertain just how to approach her.

Torpedo Bombers shows the men at home on the base and at war, and of course we follow their stories to their conclusions. In one scene Soviet crew members investigate a downed Messerschmitt only to discover the pilot dead and frozen while his thermos of coffee still steams when opened.  Another scene depicts the men attending a theatre performance conducted entirely by midgets, and when the acting troupe leaves and the pilots & crew members thank them, it’s impossible not to draw the conclusion about just where these midgets would be if Hitler ever got hold of them. No heavy-handed conclusions are necessary from the plot, but these scenes grant humanity to the Soviet cause.

Real black and white footage from WWII is seamlessly spliced together with the created scenes.  We see grainy archival black and white footage of German ships firing at the sky, and then these scenes are juxtaposed with the Soviet flyers. While a large portion of the film concentrates on the air war, a substantial portion of the film concerns the men’s private lives: one man is reunited with his mentally traumatized son who was thought to be lost, but there’s no news of the pilot’s wife and baby. The boy was located in an orphanage, and the father begins to question whether the boy is indeed his son. Belobrov’s opinion seems to be that it doesn’t matter: here’s a boy who needs a father and a man who needs a son. This aspect of the film underscores the social upheaval afoot inside the Soviet Union with millions dead and missing, and those left behind trying to enjoy whatever time they have left.

Another subtle idea within the film examines the role that women play as supporters for the Soviet pilots and crews. There’s tremendous pressure on them to have sex. One woman’s husband is killed and there’s substantial social pressure for her to pick up with Belobrov. No one seems to appreciate the fact that she’s pushed to the brink by the death of a husband, and may be too fragile to get involved again in a relationship with another pilot who’s very likely to die.

The film concludes with a photo library of real torpedo bombers who died in WWII.

Torpedo Bombers is an entry in Caroline and Richard’s World Cinema Series.

The Winter War: Talvisota (1989)

“The only land we’ll give them is their burial plot.”

I came across this film thanks to a hosted blogging event conducted by All About War Movies. I’m more into crime film than war film, but The Winter War from director Pekka Parikka sounded interesting–mainly because it covered a subject I wanted to know more about: The war between the Finns and the invading Soviet army. The film doesn’t give any historical background, so first I’ll back up and say that Finland was considered part of Russia until Finland declared independence in 1917. The new Bolshevik government, facing enormous problems on the home front, rolled over when faced with Finland’s demand for autonomy, and Finland then became an independent country. Move forward just twenty years to the Stalin-Hitler Pact.  Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939, and then the old territory of Tsarist Russia became a target. Stalin wanted Finnish land, he claimed, as a “buffer” for Leningrad which really was an excuse for a landgrab.  The Winter War began after negotiations broke down between Stalin and Finland and a provocative Gleiwitz type event conducted by the NKVD took place. For the war, Mannerheim was the Finns’ Commander-in-Chief, and as a former member of the Imperial Russian Army, he had a good idea what the Finns faced. Incidentally, Mannerheim was opposed to the war and supported negotiations with the Soviet Union. The first film footage taken on Russian soil is of the 1896 coronation of Nicholas II, and if you watch the grainy footage, Mannerheim is walking slightly ahead of the new Tsar, off to the side, and carries the imperial orb.

 The Winter War lasted from Nov 1939-March 1940, and the film concentrates on a group of reservists from the farming community of Kauhava–specifically the Hakala brothers Martti (Taneli Mäkalä) and Paavo (Konsta Mäkalä) as they defend the Mannerheim Line. The film opens with the chaos of goodbyes and men reporting for duty. This opening scenes are portents of things to come: the men are ill-prepared, there’s little or no equipment, and no one expects fighting to actually begin. Negotiations are taking place between Finland and the Soviet Union, so the more optimistic men don’t expect a war to take place. There’s one seasoned soldier, Yilli (Esko Nikkari) however, who fought in 1918, who fully expects to fight and who also expects the fight to be tough. As the negotiations play out, the men from Kauhava move closer and closer to the front line and there’s a range of innocence and denial about what they face.

No shots took place until 50 minutes into the film, and then from this point on the action was almost relentless. Mostly the film portrays a war of attrition. The group of men whose fate we follow are sent to defend the Taipale River. Watching the film, seeing the men freezing in the ice and snow, well I couldn’t help but wonder what is worse…a war fought in the freezing cold or a war fought in the jungles of South East Asia. That’s a rhetorical question, by the way, but there is something dramatic about flamethrowers used against the white landscape and the white snow that turns to blood or is churned with mud by the continual onslaught of tanks.

Since the Finns basically fight a war of attrition in a situation that seems to be a throwback to WWI trench warfare, we see battle after battle as the Finns are decimated in one way or another. The film shows clearly that the Finns were outgunned and outmanned, but while the invading Red Army was vastly superior in sheer numbers and weaponry to the Finns, Stalin had been busy executing Red Army officers over the previous few years. This left the Red Army weak in leadership. The Winter War does not depict the guerrilla warfare waged by the Finns–instead it concentrates on the fierce trench war waged between the lads from Southern Ostrobothnia and the Red Army horde who periodically storm the Finnish territory under cover of aircraft attacks.

The invading Russian horde looks like another species from a distance, and those old Civil war hats add to the sense of alienation. A couple of the close-ups of Russians looked uncannily like Trotsky which was a bit distracting, but since we see things from the Finns’ point of view, the demonic view of the enemy probably mirrors just how those on the front lines felt. One of the most remarkable facets of this film is the way in which the Finns treat each other–while the men are disciplined, the discipline appears to be internal rather than external. Yes we do see so-called superior officers, but for the most part the men appear to hold themselves in check. These men are not, unlike their Russian counterparts–soldiers–but rather simple men fighting to keep their way of life. And when one man, a rather more fragile character can no longer stand the pressure and has a nervous breakdown, he’s treated with compassion and love. Of course, these men all know each other since they hail from the same geographical region, and many of them are related. I couldn’t help but think of all the war films in which troops are shot by firing squads for breaks in ‘discipline.’ That element is absent here, and ultimately The Winter War is an unusual film because of its inner humanity. One scene shows the men agreeing to give up wages in the hope that this will allow the purchase of much-needed equipment and weaponry.

Although there’s a large cast, we follow the action, for the most part, through the eyes of the oldest Halaka brother, Martti, and it’s also through his eyes that the inevitable questions are raised: just how much do you tell the family back home? How honest should you be about the brutality of the conditions? Those left behind say they want to know the truth, but do they really? Are they prepared for the facts? Will knowing the facts even help?

After the prolonged, repetitive but realistic action, the film’s ending comes abruptly to an end and thus introduces a further sense of madness to the carnage just witnessed. How can men be bayoneting one another to death one minute and then proclaiming peace in the next breath?

Lacombe Lucien (1974)

As I watched the marvellous Louis Malle film, Lacombe Lucien, I remembered Simenon’s account of living under the German occupation of Belgium in WWI. Simenon fictionalised this period in perhaps his most autobiographical novel, Three Crimes. In the novel, Simenon argues, and argues well, that a period of occupation is an inevitably corrupting experience. Simenon offers many examples of this through the opportunistic individuals who float with the scum who happen to be in power. This thought came back to me repeatedly as I watched Lacombe Lucien. Malle’s film takes an unsparing look at the breakdown of French society through the life of Lucien, a twisted, emotionally stunted youth who lacks both political ideology (which would at least explain his attitude and actions) and compassion towards the people who fall into his path.

It’s German occupied France–south-west France to be more precise in 1944. Definite Vichy territory here, and the film opens with young Lucien (Pierre Blaise) mopping the floors in a hospital and emptying the slop from bed pans. While the nurses listen to the radio for news about the war, Lucien sneaks a moment to take a hidden slingshot from his pocket. In just a few seconds, he kills a songbird as it sings in a tree outside of the hospital window. Lucien smirks to himself at his petty victory, and in this one act, Malle sews up Lucien’s character in a nutshell.

Lucien hates his job at the hospital. On his time off, he returns home to the village farmhouse where his mother (Gilberte Rivet) now shares the bed of her employer, Laborit (Jacques Rispal). Lucien’s father is absent–forced labour for the nazi war machine in Germany, and while Lucien is at loose ends at his old home, it’s also clear that he’s not welcome. The village is a hot bed of resistance, and the farm owner’s son–a known patriot–is off fighting with the Resistance. Lucien, attracted to the excitement and glamour of the Resistance, and tired of the boring drudgery of the hospital, wants to join, but his efforts are rightly suspect, and the local Resistance leader, schoolteacher Peyssac (Jean Bousquet) rebuffs Lucien’s interest. 

Since Lucien’s attraction to the Resistance is not ideologically based, it comes as no surprise to see him next hanging about a huge hotel–the headquarters of the French collaborationists. Soon Lucien is part of the collaboration team, and it’s a role that suits him well. As his vicious, bullying nature begins to thrive, Lucien becomes the pet of the collaborationists, toting weapons, threatening the locals, and throwing around his ill-gotten gains (he calls it “war loot“). For the collaborationists, life at the luxury hotel is one big long party with champagne, sports cars, and rich food.  Those who live at the hotel are shown to be a motley crew of misfits: an ex-bicyling champion, a minor film star, and a former policeman who was dismissed in ’36 as an “undesirable.” These are the sort of rejects who are running the show, rounding up pockets of resistance and then handing them over to the Germans, and apparently there’s no shortage of those eager to offer information. A large amount of time is spent opening letters–about 200 a day–which detail suspicions against friends and neighbours.

Nasty Jean-Pierre de Voisins (Stéphane Bouy), a French aristocrat whose behaviour hints that he’s the black sheep of his family,  takes Lucien under his wing, teaching him the tricks of how to trap members of the Resistance and once caught how to torture them. But it’s not all work, and Jean-Pierre takes Lucien to the home of  Parisian, jewish tailor Albert Horn (Holger Lowenadler) who lives in complete seclusion with his daughter, France (Aurore Clément) and his taciturn mother, Bella (Therese Gieshe). The Horns live in tenuous circumstances buoyed with tarnished glamour. While they are somewhat protected by Jean-Pierre, they must pay rent and protection money and Albert also serves as Jean-Pierre’s exclusive tailor. 

Lucien becomes obsessed with Horn’s daughter, France. This obsession ignites a change of events and a series of moral quandaries for the Horns as Lucien offers protection at a price, and it’s a protection that will expire when the Germans lose the war. Time, then becomes a crucial factor. The Horns must survive but at what price?

Time is also a factor for the collaborationists, and there’s the sense that for those who used the occupation to feather their own nests, there’s not much time left. At first the vast hotel is their party hangout/torture and interrogation headquarters, but that soon changes as 1944 wears on, and the hotel becomes a sanctuary for those sympathetic to the nazis.

Malle’s wonderful film shows the collaborationists as a nest of opportunistic, lowlife bullies who, inflated by nazi power and weapons, lord it over the locals. They are in contrast to people like the Horns who seem to be an almost entirely different species. In spite of their daily humiliations, the Horns appear to rise above their circumstances, and this is in direct contrast to Lucien and his fellow collaborationists who’ve sunk to almost unspeakable behaviour. At one point, Horn acknowledges that he cannot hate Lucien–in spite of everything he’s done.

Many reviews state that Lucien, by his youth and inexperience alone, is not an entirely unsympathetic character. He is devoid of any moral feeling, and torturing a fellow Frenchman seems to generate the same sort of feelings he experiences when he slaughters a chicken or shoots rabbits. The first scene paints Lucien as very unpleasant, and for this viewer, Lucien remained unpleasant and with more than one screw loose. While it can be argued in many films that bad characters act the way they do due to circumstances, any sort of moral compass is entirely absent in Lucien, and this is not simply due to his youth.

Tragically, Pierre Blaise was killed in a car accident the year after Lacombe Lucien was released.

Intimate Enemies (2007)

“I hear you’ve been having qualms.”

The gritty, intense French film, Intimate Enemies (L’Ennemi Intime) from director Florent Emilio Siri examines the French-Algerian war through a single platoon. It’s 1959, and the FLN (National Liberation Front) is committed to a free Algeria without the French, and the French are committed to keeping Algeria as part of France. During the French-Algerian war, France conscripted 500,000 men to fight, and approximately 27,000 never came home (according to the film). On the Algerian side, figures range from 350,000 to 1.5 million.

The film begins when a cock-up involving friendly fire wipes out the platoon’s lieutenant, and then a replacement in the form of blonde, blue-eyed Lieutenant Terrien (Benoit Magimel) arrives. Terrien is married with a six-year-old son and in his civilian life he is an industrial designer. The film wisely doesn’t allow Terrien to be a complete idealist, but his lack of savagery still puts him at odds with both his men and his superiors.

Terrien’s right hand man is the seasoned battle veteran Sgt. Dougnac (Albert Dupontel)–a man who’s fought in Indochine, but some of the other officers are also WWII veterans, or resistance fighters, so they bring their own history of various conflicts to the sparse, harsh Algerian territory.

There are no major battles fought, just mission after mission into the “forbidden zone” to capture the elusive Slimane in this tense, action-packed film. The film doesn’t get preachy (and it really could given the material), instead the plot focuses on the sheer and utter mess of the French-Algerian war. For example, the platoon has its own Algerian fighters and its own scouts. Some of the Algerians who fight with the French have seen their entire families slaughtered by the FNL fellagha (outlaws), while another fought with the French in Italy during WWII. The film doesn’t show the FLN hardliners–instead we see the terrified villagers stuck in the middle of the ‘battlefield’ and who have to pay ‘revolutionary tax’ to the fellagha or risk violent death.  There are several scenes with Algerians on both sides of the political divide facing each other and debating their choices, and for most of them, it seems to be a matter of chance which side they work for.

Several scenes cover the various arguments of those concerned in this convoluted mess, and since this is a colonial war, the arguments cover such issues as France granting independence to Morroco and Tunisia but not to Algeria. In another scene, one character compares the French occupation of Algeria with the German occupation of France. This has a particularly ironic twist as one character fought the Gestapo as a resistance fighter, and now he’s here in a foreign country supressing the locals. As the film continues the behaviour of the French devolves with foray after fruitless foray into the forbidden zone. It’s impossible not to draw comparisons with Vietnam and Afghanistan. Perhaps it’s the terrain or the napalm. But then again perhaps it’s the slaughter of villagers caught in the middle or even the torture conducted by both sides to wring information from prisoners. Watching Intimate Enemies shows again how situations such as My Lai can occur.

Lt. Terrain has some harsh lessons to learn on his path to brutality, but learn them he does, and along the way he crosses the ‘immoral order’ divide. Deliberately hung out to learn about the brutality of the enemy, Terrain descends to a level of “barbarism” he could not have imagined. After all, “at 100 volts, the truth always comes out.”

The only thing we all have to cling to is our belief system–whatever that may be, but whatever morality Terrain tries to hang on to is ripped away or eroded in the impossible moral quagmire he faces. Terrain is confused by conflicting moral choices. What is his first priority? What is his mission? And does he have to abandon morality in order to fight the FLN? The film’s final message is that the entire war was a horrible mistake with thousands of wasted lives on both sides.

The film is based on the non-fiction book by Patrick Rotman.

Mi Mejor Enimigo (2005)

“What’s this? War or a boy scout camp?”

Set during the 70s during border tensions between Chile and Argentina, Sgt Ferrer (Erto Panjojo) takes five conscripts out on patrol near the border. Ferrer is ordered to discover the barb wire boundary from the 1904 borders and then ‘defend the islands.’  The men are each given twenty bullets and told to kill 5 Argentineans. Since this is hardly a well-funded project, they have one compass to guide the way.

Given the set-up, the absurdities come fast and furious–with the underlying message that the men are entirely expendable in this insane mission. One of the conscripts, the plump, sweet but clueless Almonacid (Andres Olea) has the job of picking up a pebble every 1000 steps to mark their progress and approximate distance.  As the terrain changes, the Chileans found themselves on the flat pampas covered plains with nowhere to hide, and they can’t tell where Chile ends and Argentina begins. It doesn’t take long before disaster strikes and the men find themselves locked into a version of trench warfare with their enemies –The Argentineans .

Mi Mejor Enimigo from director Alex Bowen, starts off very strongly before sliding into a few predictable cliches. Some of the characters are well developed while others are virtually ignored. But in spite of these faults,  the film manages to redeem itself with its clear, subtle final scenes that underscore the idea that war is a pointless exercise in stupidity. Are the Chileans at the mercy of the Argentineans or their own officers? There’s one scene with the Chilean soldiers chatting when it suddenly occurs to them that they are all from Northern Chile. One of the men realizes that their origins dictate their assignment as it’s a well-known fact that many southern Chiles don’t see Argentina as a blood enemy. There’s an uncomfortable moment of silence and then the conversation moves on. The film’s gorgeous cinematography and stunning use of wide open skies, spectacular sunsets and vast open plains helps the sometimes weak plot in the message that borders are hard to clarify and sometimes impossible to maintain….

A great deal of the story focuses on private Rodrigo Rojas (Nicolas Saavedra) a young man who carries a photo of a waitress (Fernanda Urrejola) inside his helmet. He swears that if he survives this girl will be his, and this statement parallels the idea that some men get medals and some men don’t.

War is Sell (2004)

 “How and why might a culture take their conflict into an organized form?”

Napoleon once said, “Men will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon,” and considering he talked 1000s of men into an insane assault against Russia, well, we can only assume that Napoleon knew what he was talking about. The documentary film, War is Sell takes a look at how a war is ‘sold’ to the people who have to fight it. Obviously the politicians who come to the decision that war is the only solution to whatever foreign policy problem the country faces are not the ones who put their lives on the line, so the big question becomes, how do those at the top–those making the decisions–persuade the rest of us peons to go along with it?

War is Sell is divided into three sections. The first section, Tricks of the Trade examines some tried-and-true methods behind whipping a country into a war frenzy, and this takes us to a discussion of propaganda. Propaganda is defined as “attempts to indoctrinate a mass audience” while it “strives to be invisible.” Interviews with several writers and media watchdogs are included, and the film examines propaganda techniques including: Demonizing the Enemy, 3rd Party Endorsement, Staying On the Message, Telling the Big Lie, Using Doublespeak, and Silencing the Opposition. The film uses a historical approach with archival footage to examine these tactics used through WWI up until the present mess in Iraq.

The film’s second section, Teaching Propaganda is the weakest. The filmmakers enter the classroom of high school teacher, Mary Skinner and record her lesson about propaganda and subsequent discussions with her students. While Skinner’s valiant efforts in the classroom are noted, this section of the film is uninteresting. Perhaps if one plans to teach a classroom of students the same sort of lesson, there’s some value here, but apart from that, this second section seems wildly out of place.

The film’s third section, however, was extremely interesting. This section, The Culture of War takes an anthropological approach to examine the phenomenon of violence. Professor Neil Whitehead from the University of Wisconsin presents a rational, thoughtful and intelligent overview of humans and their violent tendencies, and he notes that when it comes to war, there is a political gap between the “intentions of the leaders and the willingness of the followers” that has to be “filled with some sort of narrative.” The narrative, Whitehead argues, might include the “danger of resource loss” and/or the presentation of “aggressive action from another.” This narrative, Whitehead explains “need not be untrue.” Naturally, however, problems arise when national aggression towards another country is unjustified (based on, let’s say, wildly inflated intelligence information) or “presented as the only possible option.”

This final section (and strongest part of the film) includes: The Need for Propaganda, Bred for War, The Cannibal Within, The Terrorist Within (an examination of state terrorism and the Theory of the Intimacy of Violence.)

The 2-DVD disc set places the film on one disc, and the other disc is devoted to extras. Extras include: archival footage, WWI posters, short films: America Goes to War, Divide and Conquer, and Despotism, footage of the US presentation to the UN in 2003, miscellaneous Iraq War propaganda, deleted scenes, John Stauber: Embedded Reporters, Mary Carpenter: Trench Warfare, Robert Fisk: Descending into the Pit, Alexander Cockburn: Very Bad Liars, and Amy Goodman: The Silenced Majority. It’s somewhat uncanny to see propaganda materials from WWI and realise how strikingly similar these materials are to the stuff used to trumpet the Iraqi War. I suppose some things never change. For those interested in reading more about war propaganda, I recommend Mickey Z’s handy-dandy guide: Seven Deadly Spins.

Why We Fight (2005)

 “They want to spread democracy around the world on the point of our bayonets.”

Using footage from Eisenhower’s farewell speech to the nation, director Eugene Jarecki’s documentary film Why We Fight includes the departing president’s warning: “we have been compelled to create a permanent armament industry of vast proportions. We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications.” Eisenhower, according to interviews with family members, struggled with the growing Military-Industrial Complex, and as an old soldier, he was alarmed by its explosive expansion following WWII. The film examines the roles of all the players in the war food chain–from those who make the bombs, those who design the bombs, those who drop the bombs, those politicians who make the decisions to drop the bombs, and those contractors who profit so well from carnage. On the other side of the coin, the film also includes footage of the results of so-called “precision guided missiles” (and as it turns out, they can be wildly inaccurate), and this includes some fairly gruesome photos of the morgue in Baghdad.

On another level, the film examines the background stories of two people touched in different ways by the war in Iraq. There’s a very sincere New Yorker, Wilton Setzer, a retired policeman who lost his son in 9/11. At first, he sought revenge for his son’s death, and like many Americans, he somehow connected the war in Iraq to the bombing of the Twin Towers. Setzer was flabbergasted when he heard Bush admit on television that there was “no connection” and his sense of clear outrage is shattering as he realizes that both his grief and patriotism have been exploited. Another thread follows the story of William Solomon, a young man who decides to enlist in the army following the death of his mother. One of the most interesting observations the film makes about enlisting is that “self-interest” is used to gain recruits, while paradoxically they are then expected to pay the ultimate “self-sacrifice.”

The most powerful statement the film makes, however, is the complete, startling emotional and moral disconnect of those involved with the war-machine of the Military-Industrial Complex. The film interviews humble assembly line bomb makers, and one woman who charmingly says she’s rather be “making toys” for Santa Claus, agrees she’d rather not think about the ultimate goal of the bombs she helps make. Similarly, pilots interviewed gently smile as they recall how proud they felt to be involved in the first air strike in the war on Iraq. Even a weapons designer–a woman forced to flee the debacle in Vietnam, is now ironically employed to design and create weapons that are crafted for maximum destruction. The film follows the war food chain through the huge corporations that benefit from war, the lobbyists, congress and the politicians who need to feed the voters at home with jobs from the Military-Industrial complex.

Undoubtedly, the film is so good because director Jarecki calls upon such a range of participants. Those interviewed include Richard Perle from the so-called New American Century Project, McCain, Gore Vidal, and various military advisors and historians. Lt. Gen Kwiatkowski who resigned from the Pentagon when she could not stomach the disinformation campaign that raged prior to the invasion of Iraq sums it up beautifully: “Why we fight? Because not enough people are standing up and saying I’m not doing this anymore.”

The Gleiwitz Case (1961)

 “The job we are doing is part of a master plan.”

The documentary style black and white film The Gleiwitz Case recreates a long buried incident that sparked WWII. In 1939, a staged attack was conducted against a radio station in Gleitwitz–a few miles away from Germany’s border with Poland. The Gleiwitz incident was part of Operation Himmler–an orchestrated Gestapo plan to demonstrate “Polish aggression” against Nazi Germany, and it was supposed to provide the perfect excuse Germany needed to invade Poland.

Alfred Naujocks (Hannjo Hasse) organized the incident operating under the direct orders of Heinrich Muller and Reinhard Heydrich. The plan was to attack the station using Polish-speaking German officers. These officers–dressed in Polish uniforms–grabbed the airwaves and made hostile statements against Nazi Germany using Polish and broken German. Then as further ‘evidence’ left behind, the Germans took a Pole from a concentration camp, dressed him in a Polish uniform and shot him in the front of the radio station.

The film is basically a recreation of events–there’s no examination of the psychology of the characters, but this is an excellent portrayal of the cold efficiency of the Third Reich in operation. The film’s realism and pacing is reminiscent of The Battle of Algiers–with an emphasis on close-ups and a breathtaking immediacy. The film is a chilling reminder of exactly how calculating the Gestapo were when it came to propaganda, and it’s a demonstration of a government using a range of propaganda devices to ‘sell’ a war to the people–enraging a nation and whipping it into a war frenzy. In this instance, Hitler publicly preached reason and patience and in reality created a moral imperative and a fictional urgency to justify war. The Gleiwitz incident took place on August 31, 1939, and the next day, Germany invaded Poland. The film ends with the chilling caption: “43 million dead.” DVD extras include: the trailer, a photo gallery, an essay “The Case of the Gleiwitz Case”, biographies and filmographies. Directed by Gerhard Klein, the film is in German with English subtitles.

Salvador (1986)

 “It’s like Baltimore, or something.”

Salvador, from director Oliver Stone, takes a look at the war in El Salvador during 1980-1981 through the eyes of a renegade photographer. The film, critical of American support of the right wing Revolutionary Government Junta and its death squads illustrates the country’s messy political, domestic and military situation. The result is a hodge podge blend of spot-on political acuity mixed with the usual ridiculous Hollywoodisms (yes, I made up the word, but it fits).

When dumped by his wife in San Francisco, seasoned war photographer Richard Boyle (James Woods) decides to head for the war action in El Salvador, and he takes along DJ Doctor Rock (James Belushi) mainly for the use of his car. Doctor Rock thinks they’re heading for a resort, and he’s shocked when they arrive in El Salvador. A few minutes inside the border confirm Rock’s worst fears about the country.

Boyle’s other motive for returning to El Salvador, as it turns out, is to rescue a young El Salvadorian woman, Maria (Elpidia Carrillo) and her baby. As events in El Salvador spiral out of control, Boyle and Maria’s escape becomes problematic. This is complicated by Boyle’s adversarial relationship with right wing military leader Major Max, and Boyle’s intentions to capture some photographic evidence of the massacres taking place in the country.

The film does a good job of illustrating events as they unfold–the murder of Archbishop Romero, the rape and murder of three young nuns and a popular lay worker, and the fact that America is stirring a very ugly conflict. While American “Advisors” hang out in a lush resort hotel and largely avoid the realities of what is taking place, the countryside is littered with rotting human carcasses. The massacre of civilians is blamed on left-wing death squads, but Boyle quickly realizes that the country is in the hands of a right wing government who are slaughtering thousands and trying to stick the blame on the FMLN guerillas. The film also illustrates, quite well, American paranoia when it comes to excusing involvement in El Salvador in order to head off ludicrous fears regarding Castro’s supposed intentions to invade America. There’s one excellent scene in which Boyle faces off some fellow Americans. He’s disliked because he’s a leftie, and he tries, valiantly, to explain his moral problem with America’s involvement and support of the murderous right wing: “I’m left wing, but I’m not a communist. You guys never seem to be able to tell the difference.”

The film however, slides into absurd Hollywoodisms. For a start, just on a plot level, since when did Boyle suddenly decide that Maria was the love of his life? According to the film she didn’t seem to exist until Boyle’s wife leaves him, and then it suddenly becomes an imperative to travel down to El Salvador. Furthermore the film continually perpetuates stereotypes by trivializing, idealizing and simplifying. The trivializing images: The villains of the piece (Major Max and a few crass American officials) are simply stock characters–not real people. There are the idealized images: Maria–who incidentally lives in a hut on the beach–is portrayed as fancifully swinging naked in a hammock with Boyle, allowing herself to be photographed by her brother. The simplified images: Boyle is periodically portrayed as some sort of American action hero–a most unfortunate tendency that is repeated ad nauseam in Hollywood films. Salvador is a film that is supposedly outside of the mainstream, and yet it continually projects innate American superiority in the film’s images. So, it’s a mixed bag–some good–some bad.

Dreams of Sparrows (2005)

 “Baghdad is hell.”

The documentary The Dreams of Sparrows is the first film from Iraqi filmmaker Hayder Mousa Daffar. Daffar states, “I wanted to show the world what life was like in Iraq.” Those fortunate enough to stumble across this film certainly gain at least a brief, painful glimpse of daily life in Iraq.

Daffar and his associates interview a number of Iraqis and travel to several locations. Most of those interviewed are optimistic about Saddam’s removal from power–although a few interviewed Iraqis start swearing when they hear the name ‘George Bush’. But as the film wears on, months go by, and optimism changes to despair as the daily conditions worsen. Those standing in long lines for petrol are interviewed, and the mood isn’t pretty. We see glimpses of life in a private girls’ school in Baghdad, a temporary shelter for the homeless, a Sadr City insane asylum, and a Palestinian refugee camp. Palestinian refugees were welcomed by Saddam, but were turfed out of their homes after the U.S. invasion. When the film was made in 2003, these Palestinian refugees had spent 8 pitiful months in tents. One man asks, “Where is the democracy and the freedom?”

Members of the General Union of Writers in Iraq present their philosophical interpretations of the current situation, and one man explains the insurgency as an inevitable consequence, “When you provoke a people against their leader, you will start a revolution.” There are even a few shots of U.S. troops. Some are protecting a petrol station–others are seen storming a home, and still others are seen chatting with Iraqi children.

The Dreams of Sparrows has its amateurish moments, but overall it’s a fascinating glimpse at a tragic situation. The film begins with a cheesy reenactment (just like those appalling history reenactments), and while it’s understood what the filmmaker is trying to say–the film would have been a lot better without the reenactment. A word of warning–there are a few graphic scenes involving humans and animals. The film takes us to the site of mass graves in Fallujah, and dead and starving animals are a common occurrence in the film. In English and Arabic.