Talvisota 89 (English subtitles)--Shell shocked!

[John Kettler]

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

The last time I felt this way after a war movie was following "Das Boot" (English subtitles), where I came away feeling as though I'd been depth charged. This was even more harrowing and longer! Endless bombardments, MG fire, aerial bombings, coupled with a bottomless supply of Red Army troops. It's a wonder I have a nerve left.

A rich look at a country, culture and a subject of which I know relatively little. Terrific direction, art direction, cinematography, screenwriting and such. Very tough on trees, though. Did they get the T-26s and OT-26s from Parola?

Once the shooting started, the experience was utterly engrossing and showed, as I've never seen before, the remorseless nature of modern warfare and the macerating it does of the men on whom it feeds. It got to the point where every time I saw a Rata coming in, I flinched; much worse when the Tupolev SBs or whatever they were, came down and let fly. No idea how bombs came down in box like clusters of four, though, from a single plane. Better for filming, perhaps? Loved the leaflets. Use depicted was a common response by soldiers. Much more realistic artillery and bomb FX than is typical here. First rate progressively ruined defenses. They were so degraded and caved in by late in the movie they more nearly resembled narrow and shallow drainage ditches a la Normandy than actual combat trenches.

I know Finns are tough, but I guess the production budget didn't include enough money for gloves for more than a handful! The sauna was quite the juxtaposition with the war, and I loved the whole field kitchen bit. Camo on the unknown to me ATG (Hotchkiss 25 mm, maybe?) was so good I could hardly see it at all. Would've loved to see the ski troops come whizzing in and gunning down the Russians ("whispering death," I think), as the roadbound (not here, light woods only) Russian troops themselves reported happened time and again. Nor did winter seem to be affecting the Russians at all in the film. Given what actually happened during the Winter War, we should've seen the Red Air force bombing or strafing its own troops at least once. Bet that would've taken the starch out of an attack. Am surprised Finns put up zero air defense in film at all. Pretty sure I saw someone faking bolt action operation of an SVT-40. I thought the combat breakdown of Erkilla (can't type Finnish) was brilliant and disturbing, as was the body in chunks (doubt the chunks would've been in the trench) and the grim pall bearer story. Headache pills as the (placebo) shell shock cure!

But the reasons that those poor Finns got torn up so thoroughly should be obvious: The splendid Finnish artillery was pretty much nowhere to be seen, let alone working as described by our arty grogs; there were no mortars, either. But what I really missed seeing were Lahti L-39 semiautomatic 20 mm ATRs (extra points for skis) and any sign whatsoever of a Finnish sniper! The closest they got to a Lahti was what looked like a dead PTRS/PTRD in one trench. Molotov cocktails worked fine, though, and the bit about the guy thinking he could drink it was good. Molotovs could've been thrown onto the fronts of the T-26s and would've looked spectacular, but I doubt the tanks' owners would've been happy with seared paint and combusted interiors, seeing as how the fires seen are real and not FX. The abrupt transition from normal uniform or even civvies to practically everyone in winter overgarments and helmets was jarring. Did they really not paint their helmets white or at least tone them down so they didn't gleam more or less blackly?

I'd originally planned to watch the Tali-Ihantala film, but got confused! It worked out fine, because I'd wanted to see the film with the real T-26s, too. Amazing to think the Russians still had operational T-26s and BT-7s when Op August Storm was launched in 1945.

On balance, "Talvisota" was quite the viewing experience!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Trooper117]

Just watched it... grim stuff!

[H1nd]

btw there are multiple versions of that film around and one wich I have not been able to find even from the internets darkest corner is the 256 minutes long tv-version. Cinematic version was cut down to 195 minutes and IIRC there is even shorter "international" version around.

All in all (with all the national pride bias possible) it is one of the best war films ever made IMHO

[John Kettler]

Trooper117,

Grim indeed!

H1nd,

An over 4 hour version? Why, with commercials, it'd take a week to watch! The mind--what's left of it--boggles. I absolutely agree with your rating of Talvisota as a top war film. Don't know whether it'll be tonight, but Tali-Ihantala awaits. I think someone turned on an arc light after your visit, for here is your cinematic Holy Grail--the 256 minute version. No subtitles, not that it concerns you. It was in the sidebar on YT for Talvisota 89 (English).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRhA3YWCe2I

Regards,

John Kettler

[H1nd]

haha thanks! apparently I was not looking hard enough praise the youtube where you will find a solution to all problems I think the four hour version was originally cut to episodes and shown as a miniseries on TV iirc. And thank god on a non comercial tv channel if you can believe that

[fry30]

Molotov cocktails worked fine, though, and the bit about the guy thinking he could drink it was good. Molotovs could've been thrown onto the fronts of the T-26s and would've looked spectacular, but I doubt the tanks' owners would've been happy with seared paint and combusted interiors, seeing as how the fires seen are real and not FX.

I can't remember where I read it, but I'm sure it was linked from here: One of the ways (primary?) to take out a T-26 in Finland was a molotov onto the rear deck. Something about exposed parts or an opening into the tank had something to do with it. Can't remember if they do it in the movie. (Isn't this the one where he jams the treads with a log?)

I really enjoyed the movie, the OT-26s were awesome.

Oh and as an aside, I also loved Das Boot, every character save one (the red-haired submariner) actually did the English overdubs at or around the time of making the movie, so it might be worth giving it a try.

[John Kettler]

fry30,

Then the T-26 technical expert (uncredited) got it right. Twice. But since those were real tanks, unless I'm sorely mistaken, I wasn't kidding about the downside (to the tank owners) of a frontal Molotov attack. As for DB, I tried watching it once in English, and it was nothing like as good as watching it in German, with English subtitles. Torpedoed the immersiveness, if you will. Speaking of which, Webster's apparently doesn't recognize the word, but you (and lots of other CM types) might enjoy this well thought out little discourse on immersiveness and game design.

http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/creative/game-design/game-design-immersiveness-r262

While we're on film voicing, I've never understood why there are so few war films with actors from the country whose military they're supposed to portray. Germans are seldom played by Germans, and Russians played by Russians are even rarer, at least on the Anglophone side of cinema.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Michael Emrys]

While we're on film voicing, I've never understood why there are so few war films with actors from the country whose military they're supposed to portray. Germans are seldom played by Germans, and Russians played by Russians are even rarer, at least on the Anglophone side of cinema.

True. When movies want to portray foreigners of any sort, they hire English actors...or at least actors who speak with an English accent. The formula seems to be English=foreigner. One notable exception which I assume all here are familiar with was A Bridge Too Far, which hired German—or at least native German speakers—to portray German characters. That impressed me.

Michael

[poesel]

Even more funnier are American/English actors playing Germans and speaking German in the German version of a movie. The Allied soldiers are of course dubbed in German by Germans.

So the only persons speaking with heavy English accents are the Germans while the allied soldier speak perfect German.

[Sardaukar]

Reason the splendid Finnish artillery was almost absent from movie was historical. During Winter War Finnish army had massive shortage of artillery rounds. Thus, like depicted in movie, they didn't have much to shoot. Also, Lahti L-39 didn't make it into Winter War, apart from few prototypes.

This was amended during peace between Winter and Continuation War and during latter. Artillery was crucial in stopping Red Army during battlers of summer 1944.

I have special interest into this movie since one of my distant relatives is depicted in it. Also the unit that they relieve from front line when they come to front first time was the one where my grandfather fought during Winter War.

[H1nd]

There was also much variation in fighting along the mannerheim line in itself. Some units had more support and better bunkers when some units had to do with only two at-guns and few mortars per regiment of infantry with hastely dug trenches. The defensive line was by no means uniformly strong or supported. There was also huge difference in fighting in the karelian isthmus and elsewhere. North of lake ladoga the war was more mobile and emphasised ski troops, light infantry and the motti tactics (wich are absent in the film). The isthmus on the other hand was pretty much pure trench fighting against evolving soviet tactics. The first month was relatively "easy" time against bad soviet organization an tactics but later on the soviets adopted much more effective small unit combined arms tactics wich eventually broke the mannerheim line. This evolving of tactics is not very well represented in the film since all we can see apart for few night time raids are human wave after wave.

[Secondbrooks]

I can't remember where I read it, but I'm sure it was linked from here: One of the ways (primary?) to take out a T-26 in Finland was a molotov onto the rear deck. Something about exposed parts or an opening into the tank had something to do with it. Can't remember if they do it in the movie. (Isn't this the one where he jams the treads with a log?)

Atleast one veteran in his memoirs tells that Molotovs in his sector was just to blind and stop enemy armor so that it could be finished off with high explosive charges. Idea was to make it stop by obscuring it's vision so that charge could be lobbed under or in near vicinity of the armor. If i recall in his account correctly Molotovs were just shipped to troops so use must have evolved and maybe they were used as a main destructive weapon, as you described, somewhere at sometime.

I don't actually know what was primary intended use by all-knowing high ranking officers*, but that text was written by man who actually did it like i described. In fact there's not many accounts describing use of molotovs, i've read maybe couple hundred memoirs and battle descriptions from Finnish ww2-veterans and can remember just that one first hand account...

Sadly for our Finnish speaking arschlochs, who might be interested in said memoir, i don't remember name of the book or writer.

*Those all-knowing high ranking officers also figured out to use Suomi SMGs as SAW to support assault teams advance (mainly because they were often only automatic weapon in squads)... It didn't take too long for guys in front lines to figure out better way to utilize them. Like in point of assault team.

John Kettler mentioned Finnish Snipers.. We had one, Simo Häyhä. His example did encourage others to dabble in art of sniping (atleast couple accounts mention that his example made others to try it). Overall we had no proper equipment or training (Finnish homeguard Suojeluskunta did give pretty good sniper training but Army to my knowledge did not and staff-officers knew nothing about sniping). There were no good optics and few poor guality optics were forgot into some shady warehouse corner to be re-discovered after Winter war. Hayhä himself was leader of riflesquad by his training in Army and that was what he trained in Suojeluskunta aswell (no sniper stuff for him, to my knowledge), but his CO judged that he would suit better as a sniper. Being former Legionaire of French Foreign Legion might have broaden he's (=CO's) perspective on use of snipers.

On other hand Soviets had tons of snipers and could provide equipment for them. I've read that Soviet union at dawn of WW2 had more snipers that whole western Europe or even western world. Finns were pretty much loosing sniper war against them in all fronts in both wars. There's Sulo Kolkka poping out in some 'best snipers'-lists as another Finnish sniper along with Häyhä, but he's either made-up propaganda figure or someone mixed up Häyhä with him in international press. Or something along those lines. No such man has been found to serve in Continuation War.