Oni srazhalis za rodinu (1975)

User Rating:

8.3/10   

Director:

Sergei Bondarchuk

Writers:

Sergei Bondarchuk (writer)
Mikhail Sholokhov (novel)

Release Date:

6 November 1975 (Hungary)

Genre:

Drama | History | War

Plot:

The film is based on the eponymous book by Mikhail Sholokhov. Action is set in Russia in July of 1942 during the Second World War...

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Vasili Shukshin	...	Piotr Lopakhin
Vyacheslav Tikhonov	...	Nikolay Strel'tsov
Sergei Bondarchuk	...	Ivan Zvyagintsev
Georgi Burkov	...	Alexandr Kopytovskij
Yuri Nikulin	...	Nekrasov
Ivan Lapikov	...	Poprischenko
Nikolai Gubenko	...	Lieutenant
Andrei Rostotsky
Nikolai Volkov
Nikolai Shutko	...	Lisichenko
Yevgeni Samojlov
Nonna Mordyukova	...	Natalya Stepanovna
Lidiya Fedoseyeva-Shukshina	...	Glasha
Innokenti Smoktunovsky	...	Doctor
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tatyana Bozhok
Mikhail Chigaryov
Pyotr Merkuryev
Anatoli Pereverzyov
Irina Skobtseva	...	Assistant of doctor
Angelina Stepanova	...	Old woman
Aleksei Vanin

Also Known As:

Они сражались за родину (Soviet Union: Russian title)
They Fought for Their Country (International: English title)
They Fought for the Motherland

Runtime:

137 min

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Color:

Color (Sovcolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Russia

Company:

Mosfilm

Trivia:

This was the last film of Vasili Shukshin.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: During the first battle, a few of the Germans are carrying MP44 (or STG 44) assault rifles. This film takes place in summer 1942 and those rifles were not in service in the German army (even as prototypes) until over two years later.

Scorched Earth

They fought For Their Motherland is a screen adoption of the prize winning novel by Mikhail Sholokhov. The film is directed by proclaimed Russian director Sergi Bondarchuk. It was nominated for the prestigious palme d'Or at Cannes film festival in 1975; this illustrate how powerful the film was. Approval for the films financing,screen-play and documentation of the great patriotic war for present generations came from the Russian ministry of defence via the Russian cinema council.

The film concentrates on only a small number of individual regimental soldiers fighting within a larger battalion on the Russian Steppes in 1942. We are shown not Noble soldiers and distinguished officers of the "glorious" red army, but ordinary fighting men. They are hungry, dirty, mentally and physically drained. They talk about home, family and express their emotions and feeling on the war and what it as done to them as people and their motherland. Exhausted by their continuous 12 months retreat eastwards towards the river Donn; and eventually Stalingrad. location is presented impressively on film. Firstly, by using wide angel lenses to capture the vast midst of the Steppe salt marches and corn fields. Secondly, by using close angel lenses to photograph The soldiers as they pass through, rest and interact with nervous civilians in the inhabited dwellings in this rural area. With a large location comes large battle scenes. Which are contained in this film. They shown the mercilessly destruction of land and villages by Luftwaffe air strikes. Defensive formations containing a whole battalion (which is broad in scale and includes large battle formation shoots). The film doesn't over exaggerate or go beyond the truth when handling the destruction, human cost and horror of battle in its scenes.

The main depiction of war, battle and destruction are powerfully focused on individual soldiers. This film tells a similar story for many veteran soldiers of the second world war, whatever the nationality. Boredom, fatigue, fear, fun, friendship, enemies, orders, pain, loss, distress, death and a longing to go home.

They Fought For Their Motherland" tours the inferno imposed upon the soviet people, both military and civilian, on one side by the advancing, all concurring, disciplined German army. And on the other by years of hardship, personal sacrifice, poverty and living to the ideologist view of the soviet dictatorship. This is not the most graphic of war films in todays standard of brutal, realistic, fast passed combat movies. There are scenes of battle sustained injuries and death. However, this film focuses the humanity of war and what it does to the land, and the opinions of people in occupied nations towards the soldiers who are there to protect them. This is a patriotic film from a Russian point of view, which for many years, as at the time of release, future Russian generations, and other nations that fought in the red army, should look back with pride and honour towards those who fought, and died, for their motherland.