In August 1968 Polish troops- along with those of the U.S.S.R.and assorted other countries intervened- as they put it- in Czechoslovakia to prevent a hypothetical counter-revolution. This is the story of one obsolete tank and its crew...
It isn't a very good film, unfortunately. National stereotypes abound- the Poles are obsessed with "honour" and- as one of them says and the film shows- they leave a mess behind everywhere they go; the Czechs are obsessed with making deals and surviving and the Russians- who appear briefly and murderously- are glass-chewing violent drunks. Most of the film is slapstick, which makes the odd realistic violence arbitrary and inappropriate without being moving. At a guess, it's an attempt to do something similar to Kusturica's surreal combination of farce, romance and drama in Underground, but the director lacks Kusturica's skills in camera-work and the film seems arbitrary and earth-bound. In the end, most of the tank crew with their recently-acquired girlfriends try to escape to Vienna and freedom in the tank.
It isn't a very good film, unfortunately. National stereotypes abound- the Poles are obsessed with "honour" and- as one of them says and the film shows- they leave a mess behind everywhere they go; the Czechs are obsessed with making deals and surviving and the Russians- who appear briefly and murderously- are glass-chewing violent drunks. Most of the film is slapstick, which makes the odd realistic violence arbitrary and inappropriate without being moving. At a guess, it's an attempt to do something similar to Kusturica's surreal combination of farce, romance and drama in Underground, but the director lacks Kusturica's skills in camera-work and the film seems arbitrary and earth-bound. In the end, most of the tank crew with their recently-acquired girlfriends try to escape to Vienna and freedom in the tank.
