Something for the Weekend? Try April 9th

I was flicking through Netflix the other night, trying to find something that I hadn't seen already, and came across the film April 9th: a Danish movie about the German invasion of Denmark on April 9th 1940.

Here's a slightly edited version of the IMDB plot summary: 

"In the early morning of April 9th 1940, the Danish army is put on full alert: the Germans have crossed the border and Denmark is now at war against Europe's strongest army. In Southern Jutland, Danish bicycle- and motorcycle troops are ordered to hold back the invaders until reinforcements can be mobilized. We follow Second Lieutenant Sand (played by Pilou Asbæk) and his bicycle company as they become the first Danish soldiers to meet the enemy in combat."

The film is rather good actually. It doesn't rush to get to the action, it doesn't judge the folly of sending men on bicycles (yes, really) to confront what others would call the blitzkrieg, and it doesn't contain Pearl Harbour-like unrealistic and fictional acts of heroism. It just portrays what happens to a platoon of bicycle troops who have to go to war, mad-looking helmets and all.

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That said, the action sequences are superbly done. You can really feel the tension as the platoon waits in ambush for the German recon elements to arrive. You really get a sense that, actually, what they are doing is bloody dangerous.

The noise of the enemy bullets zipping past; the sight of LMG bullets plinking off the paintwork of an SdKfz 222 armoured car; what happens when you split your men up to cover both ends of a narrow street (a lot of running backwards and forwards to try and keep abreast of what's happening): it's all done really very well...and don't get me started on their changing-a-bicycle-tyre training drills.

Maybe not a film that's going to pack out movie theatres (not that it's on anymore: it's a 2015 film) and set the world on fire, but well worth watching, especially if you're into early war gaming

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Dunkirk Trailer

Looking forward to this one: out July next year.

Vasily Grossman: A Writer At War

I've just finished A Writer At War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-45, edited and translated by Anthony Beevor & Luba Vinogradova.

It's a great book: an account of the second world war from a Soviet perspective from a writer who, today, we would say was embedded with various Russian armies throughout the war.

Beevor's editing is superb: at the start of each chapter, he sets the scene to the excerpts from Grossman's writings, placing each one in its proper historical context. He then takes a back seat and lets Grossman do the talking.

As an example, I was going to pick an exert from Grossman's writing that was directly to do with matters military, but the piece below, about what had been done to the Ukraine by the Germans, is one of the most powerful I have ever read:

"There’s no one left in Kazary to complain, no one to tell, no one to cry. Silence and calm hover over the dead bodies buried under the collapsed fireplaces now overgrown by weeds. This quiet is much more frightening than tears and curses.

"Old men and women are dead, as well as craftsmen and professional people: tailors, shoemakers, tinsmiths, jewellers, house painters, ironmongers, bookbinders, workers, freight handlers, carpenters, stove-makers, jokers, cabinetmakers, water carriers, millers, bakers, and cooks; also dead are physicians, prothesists, surgeons, gynaecologists, scientists — bacteriologists, biochemists, directors of university clinics — teachers of history, algebra, trigonometry.

"Dead are professors, lecturers and doctors of science, engineers and architects. Dead are agronomists, field workers, accountants, clerks, shop assistants, supply agents, secretaries, nightwatchmen, dead are teachers, dead are babushkas who could knit stockings and make tasty buns, cook bouillon and make strudel with apples and nuts, dead are women who had been faithful to their husbands and frivolous women are dead, too, beautiful girls, and learned students and cheerful schoolgirls, dead are ugly and silly girls, women with hunches, dead are singers, dead are blind and deaf mutes, dead are violinists and pianists, dead are two-year-olds and three-year-olds, dead are eighty-year-old men and women with cataracts on hazy eyes, with cold and transparent fingers and hair that rustled quietly like white paper, dead are newly-born babies who had sucked their mothers’ breast greedily until their last minute.

"This was different from the death of people in war, with weapons in their hands, the deaths of people who had left behind their houses, families, fields, songs, traditions and stories. This was the murder of a great and ancient professional experience, passed from one generation to another in thousands of families of craftsmen and members of the intelligentsia.

"This was the murder of everyday traditions that grandfathers had passed to their grandchildren, this was the murder of memories, of a mournful song, folk poetry, of life, happy and bitter, this was the destruction of hearths and cemetries, this was the death of the nation which had been living side by side with Ukrainians over hundreds of years."

"Best Job I Ever Had!"

I went to see Fury last night: the new WW2 movie starring Brad Pitt and Shia La Boeuf that tells the story of a Sherman tank and its crew fighting in Germany in the final days of the war.

I’m not going to write a full review, as I don’t want to give away any spoilers and you can read reviews written by people paid to write them in the paper or online, but here are a few notes to justify my hearty recommendation to all Lardies to get themselves down to the cinema and watch it as soon as possible.

I was determined to do the film justice, so went to see it at the IMAX in Leicester Square: highly recommended for any big movie as the sheer size and all-encompassing nature of both screen and sound system completely envelop you in what you are watching.

The film is great. It’s about two hours long, but that went by in a flash. To give you an idea of how much I was sucked into its embrace, there’s a bit where a column of American tanks are driving along a hedge-lined track. One of the tank crews spots some movement in the foliage and the camera flashes on a German carrying a Panzerfaust. I’m embarrassed to say that I exclaimed “Faust!” in quite a loud voice before I could stop myself! I’m not sure the young lady to left of me, who jumped with surprise, appreciated my attempt to warn the tankers of the danger!

The acting is excellent, particularly where Brad Pitt and the other crew members of the eponymous Fury are concerned; and David Ayres, the writer and director, manages to inject real tension into every moment of the film. You really don’t know what is going to happen from moment to moment: who is going to live, who is going to die etc.

I must, however, warn those of you of a delicate nature that the film is visceral in the extreme: it pulls no punches on the horrors of war front.

Now, on to the real question: is it realistic? Am I dooming you to a couple of hours sat in front of a screen shouting “no, no, no” before storming off to rivet-counters-dot-com to express your disgust in a series of blisteringly excoriating posts?

Well, I would say the film is stunningly authentic, but not quite as realistic.

The tanks (including the Tiger and an Easy Eight from Bovvy), uniforms and other equipment, along with the general realisation of the movie, are brilliant. I was transported to Germany in 1945 and, despite my best efforts, couldn’t spot anything out of place. Apparently Shia La Boeuf smokes the wrong sort of cigarette at one point, but I felt that I could forgive him that. Filthy habit anyway.

But, seriously, recommended for authenticity and to see what a Tiger, Shermans and German/US infantry look like in situ on the battlefield. That was probably what I enjoyed most.

As for realism, some bits were a little far-fetched, but no more so than in any other fictional war movie and, more to the point, no more so than many real incidents that one can read about in official, regimental and personal histories. The way to fully enjoy the movie is to remember that, and not to worry too much about, for example, whether one man can run forward into machine gun fire, jump onto the parapet of the trench containing the machine gun and kick the machine gunner in the face, allowing the trench to be taken by the rest of his section. That’s not from Fury, by the way, that actually happened during the original Australian assault on Tobruk…but if you’d seen it in the film, would you have clapped or scoffed?

So, in all, my absolute recommendation to all Lardies to see the film: and at the cinema if possible.

Fury!

Due for release 22nd October, the trailer certainly wets my appetite!

All the more so as I know they used the Tiger I from Bovingdon Tank Museum, the only working Tiger tank in Europe IIRC, in the film and Brad (that's Mr Pitt to the rest of you) launched the film there a couple of weeks ago. 

Oooh, exciting!

"Fury" Official Trailer (2014)

Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf HD April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines.