War

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A somber, visually distilled, and deeply affecting portrait of the human toll and uncalculated tragedy of nuclear holocaust. In contrast to Shohei Imamura’s characteristically unrefined, primitivistic, and subversively bawdy cinema, the film is shot in high contrast black and white, creating a spare and tonally muted chronicle of dignity, survival, community, and human resilience. Through recurring literal and figurative images of regression, Imamura conveys a dual meaning, not only in the community’s noble attempt to rebuild Hiroshima and return to a semblance of normal life after the annihilating bombing but also in their collective gradual and systematic erasure from Japanese society through long-term effects of radiation sickness, infertility, cultural (and geographic) isolation, and social stigmatization.Read More »

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There’s arguably been no historical event that’s captured the imagination of Hollywood and film goers alike quite like the second World War. It simply dominates the War genre; it seems there’s a dozen or more such films for every one about Vietnam, never mind those that have received far less attention than even that controversial conflict. Maybe it’s that a war-weary public demanded feel-good adventures, perhaps it was a culmination of technologies and increases in budgets that allowed for such wide-in-scope pictures with great attention to detail, but whatever the reason, there was plenty of room in theaters for both historically accurate and incredibly grand, sweeping War adventures alike.Read More »

A wartime melodrama shot through with the folkloric magic and vivid imagination that defined Ukraine’s so-called “poetic cinema” of the 1960s. In the dark days of Nazi occupation, a young girl native to the Carpathian mountains falls in love with a wounded Soviet partisan. Their affair sets in motion a tragic chain of events, as her family turns against her with shocking results. Borys Ivchenko’s roving camera and the striking performances of Lyubov Rumyantseva, Grigore Grigoriu, and Ukrainian screen icon Ivan Mykolaichuk make this an classic of Ukrainian cinema.Read More »

The untold story of the life and perils of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki, in six chapters. The past and the present of a city, meet and converge at its cracks.Read More »

Rousing wartime agitprop set in 1940 Paris on the brink of collapse to the German invaders. Scurvy spies, nosy newshounds, dashing intelligence officers and fetching female ambulance drivers keep the plot percolating, and the cast is chockfull of familiar faces including Ann Dvorak, Ben Lyon, Griffith Jones, Bernard Miles, Robert Morley, Hay Petrie and the always welcome Miles Malleson.Read More »

The two-part TV movie Inside the Third Reich was based on the extraordinary revelatory (if self-serving) autobiographical book by Albert Speer. Played herein by Rutger Hauer, Speer is a young man of privilege in pre-Hitler Germany who happens to be a brilliant architect. Becoming a member of Hitler’s inner circle, Speer is appointed the Nazi regime’s master builder. According to this film, Speer is egomaniacal and ambitious, but somewhat blinded to the inherent evils of Nazism. Though he’d later claim to be ignorant of Hitler’s horrific policies aimed at the Jews, he was certainly aware of the use of Jewish prisoners as slave labor: as Germany’s armaments minister during World War II, Speer exploited these enslaved unfortunates as much as anyone, if not more so. The cast includes Derek Jacobi as Hitler, Blythe Danner as Speer’s wife Margarethe, John Gielgud as Speer’s father, Ian Holm as Goebbels, Maurice Roeves as Hess, and George Murcell as Goering. Originally running 5 hours, Inside the Third Reich was filmed in Munich; it was first telecast on May 9 and 10, 1982. ~ Hal Erickson, RoviRead More »

Careless lives of few Belgrade youths are shattered when the Nazis occupy their town in 1941. Soon they join the resistance movement, and their activities bring their names to Gestapo’s termination list. This movie inspired the series that would get cult status in former Yugoslavia.Read More »

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Tora! Tora! Tora! Is the Japanese signal to attack – and this movie meticulously recreates the attack on Pearl Harbor and the events leading up to it. Opening scenes contrast the American and Japanese positions. Japanese imperialists decide to stage the attack. Top U.S. brass ignore its possibility. Intercepted Japanese messages warn of it – but never reach F.D.R.’s desk. Radar warnings are disregarded. Even the entrapment of a Japanese submarine in Pearl Harbor before the attack goes unreported. Ultimately the Day of Infamy arrives – in the most spectacular, gut-wrenching cavalcade of action.Read More »

In the summer of 1941, a group of idealistic Tbilisi students graduate. Their hopes for the future are scuppered by impending war. Robbed of their dreams, they are sent to the front line. Their struggle is chronicled with astonishing cinematographic beauty, following them from Georgia to the Berlin Reichstag.Read More »