Non-Hollywood-British WW2 Films/Series

Cardinal Richelieu

Johnny Doyle has a great thread in WW1 forum looking for films/plays/tv series depicting WW1. Now that would be too broad of a topic to cover on WW2 and the film Quiz thread churns out a fair few Hollyood/British flicks so I thought I would start a thread looking for Non-Hollywood or British WW2 films/series. So films/series made by countries beside the UK or US depicting WW2. Australia, Canada, German, France, China etc


So to start the ball rolling

Japan

Yamato(2005)

Depicts the last years of the Battleship Yamato from the young recruits viewpoint and its final voyage.


Last Operations Under Orion(2009)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYSRYzkNRmo

Near the end of the War, Japanese subs are sent to sink US Oil Tankers supplying fuel to the American forces on Okinawa.




Oba The Last Samurai(2011)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfyWL7WJ3Ts

Wiki

Sakae Ōba (大場 栄, Ōba Sakae?) (21 March 1914 – 8 June 1992) was an officer of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. He served in both China and in the Pacific campaign. After Japanese forces were defeated in the Battle of Saipan, he led a group of soldiers and civilians deep into the jungle to evade capture by Allied forces. Under Ōba's leadership, the group survived for over a year after the battle and finally surrendered in December 1945, three months after the war had ended.

tac foley

Back in 2006, five of us - four of my studes and me - went to see 'Yamato' at our local movies. To a man, we ended up cryig our eyes out.

...as did the rest of the audience. We looked like the recent mourners for the North Korean guy who has just gone, as we walked out into the auditorium in front of an amazed crowd, with our eyes red and streaming...

VERY moving movie.., as it was intended to be, of course. The Japanese are a VERY emotional bunch about stuff like that - add a bit of cherry blossom fluttering off a branch and they are almost instantly reduced to blubbering wrecks.

tac

jonniebgood1

Russian film 'Come and see'

It is not common to have a Russian view on the war but this one is very good. It portrays the early stages of Barbarossa. The trailor shown below shows one clip where the 2 people the film focuses on return to the boys village. They hear noise and run for cover as there is no one in the village. As they run past the boys house the girl sees the boys family and neighbours where they have been shot but he does not. It is an excellent film but not for anyone who likes the usual hollywood sh1te.

All Critics
Top Critics

95%

A rare look at World War II from the Soviet side, Come and See is based on the real-life experiences of Ales Adamovich, who fought with Russian partisans in Belarus in 1943, when the Nazis systematically torched over 600 villages and slaughtered their inhabitants. Adamovich and director Elem Klimov co-authored the screenplay, which shows the horrors through the eyes of a 13-year-old peasant boy named Florya (Alexei Kravchenko). Over his single mother's protests, he joins the partisans, but they leave him behind in their camp when they set off to fight the Germans. Glascha (Olga Mironova), a lovely young girl, befriends him, but the two are caught in the midst of an air raid which leaves Florya nearly deaf. Now utterly frightened, Florya and Glascha return to his village to find it in ruins, and, in one of the film's many harrowing scenes, they wade through a swamp to locate the survivors. Now committed to seek vengeance for the death of his mother and neighbors, Florya returns to the front, but finds himself in a village that's right in the path of the Nazi firestorm. A band of partisans arrive too late to save the village but in time to capture and mete out justice to several of the Nazi officers. Awarded the Grand Prix at the 1985 Moscow Film Festival, Come and See is notable as an honest and unflinching portrait of one of the darker chapters among many in the history of the World War II http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1036052-come_and_see/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljqmh9dVDI0

RadioRetro

Das Boot, the original film.

juan.kerr

Some well known films:

Downfall (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/)

Black Book (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389557/)

Stalingrad (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108211/)

The Pianist (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253474/)

Cardinal Richelieu

Back in 1969 Tito and the Yugoslav state made The Battle of Neretva, starring Yul Bryner, Hardy Kruger, Curt Jurgens, Franco Nero among others. It was the most expensive film made by the Yugoslav state at a cost of $71,015,000(2008 dollars).

TerrorFirmer

Brest Fortress. Great movie about the opening days of Barbarossa and week long defense of Brest against all expectations and odds by the Red Army.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4eODo-WfUs

Cardinal Richelieu

Two recent films from Asia I haven't seen but look forward to checking out.

Chinese, Korean, Japanese Production

My Way(2011)

Japan

Isoroku Yamamoto: Commander-in-Chief of the IJN Combined (2011)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jefoskxAt9A

Tony EH

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Russian film 'Come and see'

It is not common to have a Russian view on the war but this one is very good. It portrays the early stages of Barbarossa. The trailor shown below shows one clip where the 2 people the film focuses on return to the boys village. They hear noise and run for cover as there is no one in the village. As they run past the boys house the girl sees the boys family and neighbours where they have been shot but he does not. It is an excellent film but not for anyone who likes the usual hollywood sh1te.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljqmh9dVDI0

Have to say, I think 'Come and See' is an utterly dreadful film.

Tony EH

On non-hollyweird war movies, one could do worse than check out:

The Battle of Okinawa (1971)
Fires on the Plain (1959)
Liberation (1970-71)
They Fought for the Motherland (1975)
Stalingrad (1993)
Die Brucke (1959)

Morlar

Tony EH wrote: »

Have to say, I think 'Come and See' is an utterly dreadful film.

Visually it's impressive, in terms of acting and production values it is right up there. It was however made in Communist Era Russia and feels like a one dimensional propaganda piece.

Tony EH

Propaganda tones aside, it would have been much better if the producers had abandoned the half baked surrealist nonsense and filled out the film with better content. It's also incredibly boring for the bulk of its running time.

It's really just a 20 minute atrocity film padded out to 2 hours.

TerrorFirmer

Tony EH wrote: »

Die Brucke (1959)

Great film, one of my favourites. There's a recent low budget remake, which is utterly dreadful and an insult to the original.

Tony EH

Yeh, it was rubbish.

jonniebgood1

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Brest Fortress. Great movie about the opening days of Barbarossa and week long defense of Brest against all expectations and odds by the Red Army.

Delighted to hear that- I have it on disc but havent watched it yet.

Tony EH wrote: »

Have to say, I think 'Come and See' is an utterly dreadful film.

Really!
I enjoyed it. It was not typical action blockbuster type stuff but I dont imagine that would be realistic?

Tony EH

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Really!
I enjoyed it. It was not typical action blockbuster type stuff but I dont imagine that would be realistic?

Yep, afraid so...here's a review I did earlier...


'Come and See'

Made 40 years after the end of "The Great Patriotic War", Kilmov's 'Come and See' is often hailed as a "masterpiece" of "realism" and "fact", regarding German actions in Russia during the war. Unfortunately, real factual atrocity notwithstanding, I found very little in 'Come and See' to be factual at all, because the director chose to shoot the film in a shroud of arty murkiness, rather than as a clear historical document of atrocity and for the vast majority of the film, there is very little going on.

Essentially, viewed through the eyes of the young protagonist, Florya, the viewer is presented a singular Russian view of WWII. It's simplistic, with little grey area and it absolutely subtracts any homegrown Russian atrocity in favor of the bog standard foreign invader type. There are no complexities available in 'Come and See', there are no questions on the nature of war, or atrocity and there are no honest appraisals of the conduct of the people involved in the conflict. It's simply a short film about an atrocity, wrapped up in a much longer film about nothing.

In the first three quarters of the film, Florya and his young naive female friend, Glasha, go on an insipid odyssey, leading him to seek out a partisan band and "join up". The kids dance in the rain, babble on inanely about nothing, go deaf from explosions and look up at a FW189 recon plane that drones around the sky above their heads. Eventually, after a terribly tedious amount of time detailing very little, we get to the point of the film, the German's burning down a village barn and killing the inhabitants.

These scenes at the end of the film are quite hard to watch and are handled well, for what they are. But, it takes so long for the film to get to the point that the danger is that the viewer might not care any more. I really cannot emphasize enough how little actually happens for the bulk of the running time. It's a film that demands that the viewer be extremely patient with it.

But, there are also issues to be dealt with regarding 'Come and See's central scene. The "nazi's" are presented as some sort of wasteland warrior types, straight out of a 'Mad Max' film, or something. They absolutely do not represent any historical counterpart, though the film attempts to suggest that they are the 15th Einsatzkommando. They are the "Russian" view of the "Germans" and in that bracket alone, the viewer must be careful of what he's being told. The "Germans" are cardboard villains, not people. They are sadistic, vile, rapacious, murderous and cowardly. The lead up to burning the barn is also filled with ridiculous shots of surreal nonsense, with people doing extraordinary things for no reason. The "Germans" herd the Russian villagers to their doom, while playing music over a loudspeaker and saying things like "Germany is a civilised country". They laugh and goof around, drink alcohol, make stupid faces at the camera and get ready to enjoy some good old slaughter.

On the other hand the Communist partisans are playful, comradely and righteous in the way only movies can portray. They are completely contrasted to the "German" savages, with neither portrayal of the opposing sides containing any real truth or fact and the view of the Germans is bordering on racism.

It's clear what this Soviet commissioned film is trying to do.

As a surrealist horror fantasy, 'Come and See' has some merit, if only for the 20 minute barn burning sequence. The rest of the film though, is a real chore and very tough going. It's filled with absurd imagery too, like the female nazi eating shellfish while she enjoys the view of the burning barn. She looks like she's come straight from a nazi fetish website. One also never gets the sense that the director is inviting the viewer to do anything but get bludgeoned over the head by his visuals and overwrought tone.

In the end, I'm left with mixed feelings about 'Come and See'. The mechanics of the film are dreadful at times and it certainly is in need of a much better script. The acting is decent throughout and the last quarter of the film, though heavyhanded, is rewarding...if one can call such visuals "rewarding". However, while it's important to remember man's inhumanity to man, when it's constantly portrayed as coming from certain quarters only, one can get a little jaded. Films with purpose, like 'Come and See', can also leave a bad taste in the mouth. While its comments on Hitler and Nazism, as a vile entity, are entirely correct, it quite conveniently leaves out an comments on Communisms own atrocious excesses.

jonniebgood1

Tony EH wrote: »

Yep, afraid so...here's a review I did earlier...

Well I can't say its an unconsidered view given that review, I strongly disagree but its not really the thread to argue over that. What films would you recommend ?

Tony EH

There's some listed on page 1.

HavingCrack

The French film 'Days of Glory' (2006) is definately worth a watch. It depicts the experiences fo the colonial Algerian troops fighting for France and the terrible treatment they receive from the country they viewed as the motherland.

An aspect of the war that is often overlooked.

Belfast

U-Boote Westwarts - 1941 - 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwVixM94o_o

List of German films 1933–1945
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_films_1933%E2%80%931945#1945

TerrorFirmer

Anyone seen this, Tali-Ihantala?

Have it, but yet to watch it. Really looking forward to it, I think the Fino-Soviet conflict is grossly overlooked in history of the second world war. Astounding accuracy, even in the trailer, and I've heard even better things about the feature movie. Apparently, it's more so a movie made for history buffs, and nothing more could excite me about it!

In case anyone's out of the loop, it's about one of the various defensive battles fought by the Finns in 1944 that guaranteed their continuing independence by blunting Soviet offensives to frustration, with German help which is duly mentioned in the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9IEQYlpFlQ

citizen_p

I got Kolberg there the other day, still have to watch it but it looks to be good, not based on ww2 but it has a very interesting story behind it!

Kolberg, begun in 1943, was made in Agfacolor with high production values. At a cost of more than eight million marks, it was the most expensive German film of the second World War, with the actual cost suppressed to avoid public reaction.[4] At a time when the war was turning against German fortunes, thousands of soldiers were used in the film.[5] To film scenes with snow during summer, 100 railway wagons brought salt to the set in Pomerania. The film was finally completed at the Babelsberg Studios at Potsdam while the town and nearby Berlin were being steadily bombed by the Allies. Two extras were killed during the making of the film when an explosive charge went off too early.
The film was opened in a temporary cinema in Berlin and ran under the constant threat of air raids until the fall of Berlin in May 1945.
The film was re-released in 1965, with an attached documentary, and is now available on digitally remastered

Marty McFly

Flame and Citron, I absolutely love this film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAMIFdnnE20

Max Manus: Man of War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6-2D7uMZY0

BlaasForRafa

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Anyone seen this, Tali-Ihantala?

Have it, but yet to watch it. Really looking forward to it, I think the Fino-Soviet conflict is grossly overlooked in history of the second world war. Astounding accuracy, even in the trailer, and I've heard even better things about the feature movie. Apparently, it's more so a movie made for history buffs, and nothing more could excite me about it!

In case anyone's out of the loop, it's about one of the various defensive battles fought by the Finns in 1944 that guaranteed their continuing independence by blunting Soviet offensives to frustration, with German help which is duly mentioned in the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9IEQYlpFlQ

Thats one I want to see as well, the defence of Finland was epic by all accounts. I saw an article in Flypast magazine a while ago detailing how the makers of the film used a new-build FW190 from flug-werke decked out in Eric Rudorffers JG54 colours so I'd be interested in seeing how the Finns depict Detachment Kuhlmey's role in this battle.

Morlar

I think Flame and Citron had an excellent cast but it didn't really leave a lasting impression on me. In fact I know I have seen it but can hardly remember how the plot unfolded. That Finnish one 'Max Manus: Man of War' looks very interesting.