Reviews & Ratings for
Fate of a Man More at IMDbPro »Sudba cheloveka (original title)

25 out of 29 people found the following review useful:
memorable Soviet war-drama, 1 June 2000
Author: (info@filmhuiscavia.nl)

At first I thought this film would be the usual war film in total line with the politburo's view on The Great War. But after 15 minutes in the film, something changes. First we have a scene in which Sokolof (the main character played by director Bondarcuk)) comes home drunk - something I have never seen in an older Soviet movie, than the war breaks out and after a slightly over the top scene in which Sokolof says goodbye to his family all hell breaks loose. The scene where Sokolof drives his car filled with ammunition across the frontline is incredible, and this is only the beginning of the war. Although the story sometimes is quit melodramatic, the photography of the film is exceptional modern for a film made in 1959. In beautiful black and white the viewer witnesses the whole damn thing called war. The film is not as heartbreaking and in-your-face as Come And See by Klimov, but Klimov must have seen this film and used it as an inspiration. Russia lost 20 million people during the second world war (some because of Stalin) but what it meant for and how it changed the life of ordinary people is all to clear in this story. This man's fate as he calls it. Although the film, I suppose, is rare, see it if you ever have a chance.

14 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
Forgotten Masterpiece, 14 July 2009

Author: Federico Casal from Uruguay

This movie is almost completely forgotten. It isn't on Amazon as a DVD (as many other great films). I came to it almost by mere chance, and I got the greatest surprise of my life. I differ with some of the other commentaries. This movie DOES make you feel how the character suffered. IT IS believable (the acting is superb) and you only have to think what it all would be like (to loose all your family, or be in a war). This can be regarded as epic as Lawrence of Arabia. It's masterfully shot (Bondarchuk, main actor and filmmaker, makes technique agonize at his feet) and the theme is universal. Planes, tanks, soldiers, moving from one side to the other. This looks like a Spielberg super production, with a camera free of physical barriers. I thought I was going to watch a normal movie, but I ended up seeing one of my personal favorites. This film WILL BE highly celebrated one day, trust me.

8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
The Nightmarish Saga of a Survivor, 11 December 2011

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

After the Russian Civil War, the Russian worker Andrei Sokolov (Sergei Bondarchuk) marries his beloved Irina (Zinaida Kirienko) and seventeen years later, the couple has a son and two daughters. The family man Andrei is summoned by the Red Army as truck driver in the World War II and he promises to Irina that he will return to his family. Andrei drives through a road that is bombed and he is captured by the Germans and suffers in the prisoner camps. He finds strength to resist the maltreatment of the German soldiers thinking in Irina and his children.

Andrei succeeds to escape from the Germans and finds that Irina and their daughters were killed during the bombing of their house and his son Anatoly is a Captain of the Russian Army. Near to the end of the war, Anatoly dies and Andrei does not see any motive to live. Until the day that she sees the starving orphan Vanja begging on the streets of Uryupinsk.

"Sudba Cheloveka" is a magnificent Russian anti-war film with the nightmarish saga of a survivor of World War II. The narrative is perfect, with top-notch screenplay, direction, performances, cinematography and scenarios. The film gives the sensation of documentary and I am not sure whether the director Sergei Bondarchuk used in his debut inserted footages to give more realism to the movie.

The sequence when Andrei meets the orphan boy is touching and never corny and closes this little masterpiece with golden key. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil):"O Destino de um Homem" ("The Destiny of a Man")

6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
a groundbreaking Soviet film about World War II, 1 April 2009

Author: sh_bronstein from Germany

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This movie is very special in many ways. It is a good movie in cinematic terms because it is aesthetically very impressive and has a good plot structure. On the other hand, this film touches subjects that were taboo in the Soviet Union of the time, and bravely shows parts of the history of the war that had not been part of public discourse at the time. It is also unusual because many Soviet films about WWII ended with an upbeat note, unlike this one.

"Fate of a Man", as the title of the film translates, is a movie about a Soviet man (Sokolov) who experiences many of the horrors of the war against the Soviet Union. The movie tells his story in a flashback, showing how he is very broken after the war and what led to this. He had lost his family in the war, and had fought in it, he witnessed how his Jewish comrades were singled out and killed, and then he was taken to Germany to do forced labor. There, he suffered all sorts of abuse and barely survived. After the war ends, he goes back home, distressed and unable to find comfort for his emotional and physical pain. The film is very subtle in its depiction of the horrors of war, even though it does not white-wash what happened. As it was the first Soviet film to touch the subject of slave labor during the war, and of the murder of the Soviet Jews, it does this carefully, emphasizing the humanity of the victims of these cruel crimes without focusing on the gore. Together with "The Cranes are Flying" and "Ivan's Childhood" this is one of the first Soviet films about WWII that do not have a happy "we won"-type of ending. These three films were a form of dealing with the suppressed pain of Soviet citizens, after having lost one quarter of their population (27mio.) through the brutal attack by the Nazis.

This movie is very impressive and very touching as well. I highly recommend it.

3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Soviet POW's Belatedly Rehabilitated, 26 July 2010

Author: jhrclbpmar from United States

The work is absolutely stunning visually, at times radical in its framing. It is perfectly understandable that since the film was made only 5 years after Stalin's death the political strictures under which it was made forced the director to be careful to avoid depicting the persecution suffered by returning Soviet POW's under his rule, but by focusing on the suffering they, and most particularly the protagonist, experienced as prisoners in German work camps and the steadfast and heroic endurance they maintained in the face of cruelty and hardship he is completely successful in politically rehabilitating them as patriots, both for their contemporaries and for Soviet posterity. A beautiful and at times quite moving film. Highly recommended.

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
A Humanist Film With Humanist Faults, 5 February 2010

Author: Theo Robertson from Isle Of Bute, Scotland

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I've seen a few Russian war films recently and noticed that they feel more like Hollywood war films . Both THE STAR and 9TH COMPANY suffer from this . COME AND SEE didn't . It was a brutal , unforgettable war film made during the late communist era of the Soviet Union showing the bestial atrocities forced upon the Soviet people . I did have high hopes that being a Soviet film rather than a Russian one DESTINY OF A MAN would show the suffering the Soviets endured from 1941-45 . Does it ? Yes to a degree but there's some faults in the story telling

The story is told in flashback by Andrey Sokolov . He is taking his son for a walk in the countryside and meets a man and tells him of his wartime service . Conscripted in to the army as a driver he is captured by the Germans early in the war . He suffers deprivation as he's used as slave labour , sees comrades murdered by the Nazis , comes close death several times . Escapes and makes it back to his own lines where he's treated as a hero . He finds his wife and daughter died during an air raid and as the last days of the war take place his last child , a Red Army officer is killed in the Battle Of Berlin . Devastated Sokolov finds some comfort when he finds an orphan and adopts him as his son

It's not a film that has a strong central plot . It is rather episodic but where it succeeds is showing the brutality of the Nazi regime against conquered people . Caputured officers , political commissars and Jews were shot out of hand and as Sokolov finds himself behind Nazi lines there's a scene where people go in to a camp with a large chimney bellowing smoke . The implication is stark and obvious - you enter via the front gate and leave via the chimney

Ironically by drawing attention to the murderous intent of Nazism it leaves some plot holes involving Sokolov . He escapes from a forced labour detail and hides in the countryside for four days and is then recaptured . But would the Nazis allow an escaped prisoner to live ? Lkewise a brutal SS camp commander says he's going to execute Sokolov but then changes his mind because Sokolov can hold his drink

There's another unlikelihood and that is when Sokolov escapes to the Soviet front lines kidnapping a German officer with important documents and being lauded as a hero , but would this have happened in real life ? It's a forgotten point of history that Soviet prisoners captured during the war would receive little sympathy from their leaders after being liberated . Many of them would be sent on a death march to Soviet gulags . It's disappointing that this aspect is never referred to , especially since Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev instigated a de-Stalination program in the late 1950s at the time this film was made

That said it's very much a humanist type of film showing the triumph of the human will in the face of great adversity and all these type of films suffer from the same flaw . The Japanese film trilogy THE HUMAN CONDITION is similar in some ways . But DESTINY OF A MAN doesn't suffer from the sugary artificial aspects of Hollywood and for that we should be thankful

5 out of 35 people found the following review useful:
suffering?, 31 May 2000

Author: tom neal (briek@xs4all.nl) from amsterdam

This first directorial effort from actor Bondarchuk (mainly known for his monumental War and Peace) shouldn't have starred the director. His ruddy countenance didn't convince me one bit he suffered through all the mishaps in his life during the Great War. Furthermore I found it very hard to believe the Germans went to so much effort to save the lives of these Untermenschen. There were good performances though and it is shot beautifully.

Watch instead Come and See (Idi i Smotri) for a shattering experience of the Great War.

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