Fortress of War (2010)

Directed by Aleksandr Kott; produced by Ruben Dishdishyan, Igor Ugolnikov, Vladimir Zametalin

Alexander ‘Sasha’ Akimov is a 15 year old horn-player in the Red Army’s 333^rd Rifle Regiment’s band. Andrey Kizhevatov is the commander of the Soviet Border Guard’s 9^th Frontier Post. Yefim Fomin is the political commissar of the 84^th Rifle Regiment. Pyotr Gavrilov is the commanding officer of the 44^th Motor Rifle Regiment. They live and work in the Brest-Litovsk Fortress, on the edge of the USSR. The day is 22^nd June, 1941, and the German Army invaded Russia that morning. Without warning, the four, and thousands of their compatriots, are fighting for their lives and their country. Not many will survive.

This very well-made movie is a good example of many things. Perhaps not the least – though probably not the first considered – is that it is a good example of how Russian movies dealing with such a potentially political subject as World War Two (or the ‘Great Patriotic War’, as the Russians called their part in it) have matured. There is no propaganda here. This is undoubtedly in the movie’s favour. As an historian, I figure that history should tell its own story, not its partisans’. As well, any attempt to depict the Soviet Union of 1941 as a paradise, when it was ruled by one of the true monsters of the twentieth century, would likely backfire. Indeed, Stalinism is given a black eye as Gavrilov complains before the invasion that it is clear the Germans will attack but nothing is being done about it. And, in the film’s denouement, it is noted that many Red Army soldiers who were captured by the enemy were later imprisoned by their own government, for a kind of fraternisation (being in German prison camps). As well, the Russian propensity for frontal assaults, to close physically with the enemy, makes for good cinema, but also may reflect Stalin’s massacre of the Red Army’s officer corps a few years before, and the incapacity of the replacements to understand their job.

But some background may be necessary – and possibly even interesting - for the reader. Brest-Litovsk was a Russian city throughout the 19^th century. It was fortified and was, once, formidable. After the First World War, it was given to the newly resurrected Poland which, unfortunately, found itself by the 1930s sandwiched between the two worst tyrannies on the planet. When Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact in August of 1939, Poland’s fate was sealed. A month later, Germany invaded from the west, Russia from the east; after the enormous atrocities committed by these two powers, the transfer of Brest to Russia was almost an after-thought. By then, the fortress was long obsolete. This was symbolized by the old Imperial coat of arms inexplicably still placed above the main gate. Its fortifications were useless against 20^th century armaments, and it was defended by a garrison of only 8,000. Furthermore, these were encumbered by tens of thousands of civilians – soldiers’ families, contractors, construction crews, technicians, shop-keepers; the soldiers were barracked too far from their officers for proper control in an emergency, and support troops were too distant in the rear.

Back to the movie. The writing is straightforward in word but is especially commendable in the scenes leading up to the attack. Fomin (Pavel Derevyanko) is concerned with bringing his family to Brest; Kizhevatov (Andrey Merzlikin) worries that his adolescent daughter, Anya (Veranika Nikanava) is growing up; Sasha (Alyosha Kopashov)  is in love – with Anya. These every-day concerns are tinged with doom, felt by Gavrilov (Aleksandr Korshunov). Later, the script is sparse, conveying its text through action. Some scenes of melodrama are enacted, the perhaps too usual moments of families torn apart. Here, Fortress of War approaches the ordinary.

Something refreshing is the absence of moralising in the film (which may be an element of the missing propaganda). In particular, no one comments upon the inclusion of Sasha, a boy, in the fighting. He is there, that can’t be helped; he is Russian, he is defending his homeland. Following on the previous thirty years of war, famine and dread in the Soviet Union, none of the other characters seems to think a child in a war is reprehensible. Yet each of the adults gives him a duty they hope will keep him out of harm’s way. As well, the Germans are not demonised beyond that which their own historic actions make them. The use of hospital patients as human-shields was not documented at Brest but (unlike, for instance, the burning alive of Americans by the British in the rather awful The Patriot) such crimes by the German Army are well-known from other places.

There is undoubtedly some computer graphics (to be seen in the dive-bombing by Stuka aeroplanes) but how much of the set is so generated and how much is genuine destruction is anybody’s guess, which is a compliment to the special effects team. Certainly, a replica of much of the fortress was built life-size – and then annihilated.

The direction is compelling. The battle scenes, which take up the bulk of the film are not as bloody as Hollywood enjoys making them. Parts of anatomy are strewn liberally about, and the body count is high but, perhaps wisely, blood and gore are lost in dirt and brick dust, torn uniforms and grime. All of this makes for an interpretation of war as ugly as the most obvious of fake wounds.

The direction combines with the acting to make the best of Fortress of War. Gavrilov’s grim face as he quickly dresses under a rain of bombs tells the viewer all that he is thinking. When a wounded officer tells his wife to look out the window to see where the Germans are, she smiles; she understands what he’s asking, and so does the viewer a moment later. As usual, it is the little things, the short instances that make or break acting. As for the performers, Russia seems to produce good, young actors as frequently as does Britain. (Tragically, Nikanava, who portrays Anya, drowned in Alaska while on her honeymoon, in 2019.)

I have found that European war movies tend to use three dimensional characters to tell a wider story, the characters personal and individual, yet representing more. This gives a feeling of the epic to a movie which, objectively, actually relates a rather limited tale. This is the result of Fortress of War: it may be viewed as the depiction of one battle, or as symbolic of a nation’s determination to fight an enemy, who is hardly less horrible than their own government. In most of its elements, this film succeeds.