Kruty 1918 (2019) User Reviews

Not Hollywood, but not bad for something out of Ukraine. Know what you're watching.

[nakedowl-96029 · 4/10 · 19 October 2021]

Of the two user reviews I see here, I see an obvious divide not on the actual movie but on politics. Whether it be one user gushing that the battle scenes are perfect (they are not) or another incorrectly saying the modern Ukrainian army's uniform is "second-hand American" (anyone with eyes knows that the Ukrainian pattern is not the same as the American ACU pattern). I will say this and be done with it: Yes, it is obvious this movie has a very, very specific leaning to what it wants to make you feel. Given modern events it is not and should not be surprising. If you decided to watch a Ukrainian-made film about a time in history Ukrainian soldiers boldly laid down their lives against an overwhelming enemy and think that parallel message won't be there, you are fooling yourself. Now enough of the politics, onto the review.

Kruty 1918 is not an amazing, blockbuster movie. It is also not an absolutely terrible one. If you go in expecting Hollywood levels of acting, effects, and writing, you will be let down.

The movie follows a rather easy-to-forget cast of young student cadets who join an auxillary regiment to fight for the newly formed Ukrainian People's Republic against the Bolshevik Red Army forces. The main character is the son of one of the young nation's top generals, followed by his traitorous older brother (who is jealous over a love interest), and some other students. The characters were honestly poorly developed, and the one who stuck out the most was the Russian general antagonist. This is where the movie lost me if anything, because the Red Army general is written out like a cliche sociopathic sadist. They do not waste a moment to paint the picture that the Russians are led by a drugged-up, morbidly eccentric weirdo. It is very hard to take the movie seriously at that point.

Story-wise I felt there was a big lead up to the titular battle, only for it to feel like a sad balloon slowly being deflated. The battle effects were underwhelming, and ultimately it was hard to understand how the battle was significant at all the way it was portrayed. Meanwhile in the background story, the protagonist's brother is doing spywork for the Russians... because he's upset the girl he likes likes his brother more? I never truly understood that plot point.

There are deaths that I know the movie wants me to feel emotional about, but I simply can't. The characters are just too underdeveloped. Even the reactions by other characters when one dies, and it's clear we're supposed to feel something, seem almost comical. "Oh dear, Oleksandr is dead. Oh well."

Overall, the movie by American standards is not good. However for something out of a place like Ukraine, it's not bad. While the heavy national overtones are not subtle in the movie, and honestly greatly take away from it, one should not go into this movie expecting different. That being said, this movie did make me aware of some complicated history of Ukraine I didn't know about before and made me do some more personal research.

I say give the movie a shot, but just know what you'll be getting into.

Ukraine as victim of Russian perfidy lacks historical context

[Turfseer · 4/10 · 23 December 2021]

Kruty 1918 was developed under the auspices of the Ukrainian State Film Agency. It seeks to commemorate the January 1918 battle which ended after a few days at a railway station in the town of Kruty, approximately 80 miles northeast of Kiev. Approximately half of the 400 students mainly from a cadet school were killed by Bolshevik forces ten times their size.

The narrative's main plot involves two sons of the well known General Savytskyi, Andriy (Evgenly Lamakh) and Oleksa (Andrey Fedinchik). Andriy is a pacifist who initially declines to sign up to battle the Bolsheviks in contrast to Oleksa who embraces his father's commitment to defend the newfound Ukrainian Republic.

Eventually Andriy joins his friends who receive very quick basic training and are soon pressed into battle.

There is a very convoluted subplot which I didn't completely understand involving a Ukrainian scheme to drive a wedge between Lenin and Trotsky, the two principal leaders of the Bolsheviks. Also involved is a German agent, Berg, who is manipulated into delivering certain documents to the enemy.

Oleksa apparently betrays his country by getting involved in this intrigue but again I was confused toward the film's climax as the General's son shoots and kills his adversaries (before being dispatched himself).

There is also a rather weak love interest here where the brothers fall for a young woman, Sofia, who plays a very small part in the proceedings.

The antagonist here is the Bolshevik General Muravyov (Vitaliy Saliy), who is depicted as a one-dimensional psychopath, mainly confined to his private train car where he plays with his model train set and professes a serious interest in the occult.

In a highly melodramatic scene, it's Muravyov who orders the execution of the remaining cadets at the railway station, which reflects some historical truth-he was responsible for reprisals against Ukrainians in Kiev sometime after the events of this film took place. What the filmmakers don't tell us is that Muravyov was subsequently condemned as a traitor by the Bolsheviks themselves and killed on their orders.

Given the current political situation in Ukraine in which the conflict with Russia has once again reared its ugly head, it's understandable why the Ukrainian State Film Agency would make such a melodramatic tribute to their fallen heroes of yesteryear. The idea of course is to link the events of the past with the present.

Unfortunately there's little character development here as the "good guys" need a few serious flaws and the "bad guys" a surfeit of charm. There's also the issue of pacing-both the expository and battle scenes go on for way too long and the subplot involving the international intrigue lacks suspense.

The Ukrainian filmmakers would like to depict their country as the victim of a satanic adversary. But their failure to acknowledge their own tarnished legacy which dates back to this period in history, further diminishes the impact of this film.

I do not want to single out Ukraine as the only country to have a tarnished history. Let us realize that all the liberal democracies today (including the United States, Israel, Australia, Germany, etc.) appear to be moving toward authoritarianism in their embrace of what some have termed "medical tyranny."

Following the short-lived independence of the Ukrainian Republic after World War I, horrible pogroms against the Jews were committed in Ukraine, resulting in the murder of up to approximately 100,000 Jewish people. A prelude to the Holocaust, these atrocities were not only committed by so-called "bandits" roaming the countryside and paramilitary groups but by soldiers in the Ukrainian Army led by Simon Petlura (pictured as the second speaker at the beginning of the film).

Petlura was killed while in exile in Paris in 1926 by a Jewish assassin, Sholom Schwarzbard. At his trial, it was brought out that Petlura issued proclamations against the atrocities but many months after they occurred. The prosecution argued that Petlura could not control the violence especially during the chaotic times of the Russian Civil War.

It's likely that had Petlura spoken out against the pogroms at the time they were occurring, he would have lost his position as titular head of the Republic, as sticking up for the Jewish people was not a popular position to take among a good part of the populace at the time.

The prosecution at Schwarzbard's trial maintained he was a Soviet agent. Schwarzbard, on the other hand, maintained he killed Petlura simply in revenge for the murder of ten of his family members in Ukraine.

The French jury rejected the assertions that Schwarzbard was a Soviet spy and acquitted him thus agreeing with the defense's argument that Petlura was responsible for the pogroms as head of state (what's more Petlura was never brought to the bar of justice by any international tribunals of justice).

While the actions of these students were certainly noble, the overall picture presented appears to suggest that the Ukrainian people were the sole wronged party here-the oppressed victims of Russian perfidy.

We all know of the crimes that occurred during the Communist period in Russia but little is known of the Ukrainian role in the persecution of the Jewish people. Acknowledging that reality would have given this film the necessary historical context so sorely missing here.

incredible attention to detail.

[totoshko-42357 · 10/10 · 7 February 2019]

The film is alive, true, not counting some aesthetic moments. It feels that the battles were filmed by the participants of the real battles, the actors were as participants in the ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation). There's even a steam locomotive to ride using the water from well to well. It was interesting from start to finish. Disadvantages if there is only a question to post production.

Dubious history, flawed movie

[hof-4 · 3/10 · 25 July 2021]

Production values and special effects are OK except for some silly (and unnecessary) shots of toy trains on fake snow. Acting is acceptable, but the script has lethal flaws, such as the depiction of Bolshevik General Mikhail Muravyov as a ghoul that would scare a James Bond villain. The tone is as propagandistic and grandiloquent as that of some Soviet films of the thirties, with heroics deaths and flag waving aplenty.

The backdrop is the short lived Ukraine's People's Republic = UPR, that declared independence in January 1918 and lasted until the end of Russian Civil War in 1921. The subject is the battle of Kruty, where Ukrainian forces 400 strong, consisting mostly of cadets and students with a few professional soldiers faced a Bolshevik army almost ten times its size near the railway station of Kruty, about 120 kilometers northeast of Kiev. The battle (in which half the Ukrainians were killed) ended when prospective reinforcements changed sides and there was a Bolshevik uprising in the Arsenal Factory in Kiev (the latter the subject of Dovzhenko's movie Arsenal, 1928).

The history of the People's Republic is a tangled web and probably the movie contains some truths. It shows briefly European meddling. It also shows that the UPR was mainly supported by intellectuals, students and some professional soldiers; popular enthusiasm was scarce. There are glaring omissions; two of the founding fathers of the UPR, Mykhailo Hrushevsky and Symon Petliura are seen delivering stirring speeches, but there is no mention of Petliura's responsibility for numerous and bloody pogroms perpetrated by the UPR army under his command. At the end, Ukrainian independence was abolished and its its territories divided among Russia and Poland with other countries (Romania, Hungary) grabbing minor spoils. This lasted until the end of WWII, when the historic boundaries of the Ukraine were restored.

I found the beginning and ending particularly objectionable. We are shown one of the characters at a memorial dressed in a secondhand American uniform, which clearly seeks to link heroic deaths with the present artificial state of "war" between Ukraine and Russia. Dangerous and misleading.

about today

[danalovalcuk · 10/10 · 26 March 2022]

Great movie. Which creates a similar situation to today, where ordinary university students take up arms and fight the enemy, defending their native land. The film shows the tragedy of a person, and how many similar tragedies will be in the near future.

"Now brother you know the price of freedom. There's no freedom without blood"

[hlyzvladyslav · 10/10 · 8 November 2021]

Based on the reviews I have seen, I can tell that unfortunately some people didn't understand the main plot point. But we probably could blame having only subtitles for translations.

I wanted to clarify the whole deal with these documents and spies web.

The dialog that took place at headquoters of French general where the general says to Paul (the currier) that if a paper agreement between German and Lenin will get into Trotskiy hands that will lead to diversity between Bolsheviks and will divert their attention from UPR

French currier along with Andrii Savitkiy got intercepted by the German spy Berg. And from now on protagonist's brother (a guy with mustache) plays a role of traitor.

When Mr. Berg got caught by Ukrainian general, he realized he got played. When he is saying the general sent his son to his death, he meant older son, Andrii. Because they both know Bolsheviks will not let him walk out. Andrii's slight smile on his face as he walking means they he knew the generals plan worked and Red's took the bite.

But he had to save his younger brother who happened to be at the wrong place.

"Now brother you know the price of freedom.

There's no freedom without blood"

The price those heroes have paid for the freedom of the country that will be independent only 73 years later.

the truth must be known and protected

[migovich · 10/10 · 1 May 2022]

It is necessary to give a high score, if only in order to help restore historical truth, that true story that fascist Russia hid for 100 years. If this is not done, then the forces of evil will surely remake history in their own way, fill the space with lies and generations will forget what really happened. And we all know what awaits those who have forgotten or did not know history...