A dramatization of Soviet resistance against Nazi invasion at the site of Brest Fortress, in modern-day Belarus.
Amongst the numerous Russian movies about World War 2, the 2010 film Fortress of War (Brestskaya Krepost) stands out. Although the topic has been handled numerous times by various other authors, seldom have spectators been able to really live with the characters and experience the full horror of armed conflict. Fortress of War manages to do this so well, that the impression sticks with you some time after you have seen it.
The plot is quite simple, and the whole movie covers only the opening days of the war on a very small area of the Belorussian city of Brest. It follows the young Sasha Akimov (portrayed by Aleksey Kopashov) from the first day before the war through the horrors that follow during the next nine days of the bloody struggle with the Nazis.
Several other characters also play an important part in the story and perfectly paint the picture of the Soviet society of the time. The commissar Fomin (Pavel Derevyanko), the NKVD officer Veynsteyn (Mikhail Pavlik), the outpost commander Andrei Kizhevatov (Andrei Merzlikin), and the rebellious major Gavrilov (Aleksey Korshunov) offer a wide palette of characters that perfectly explains the diversity of the Russian (at that time Soviet) people and the differences in their approaches to life.
Still, there is one thing that they all have in common, and that is the will to resist to the bitter end and fight the invaders with all they have. It pretty truthfully shows the way the Soviet military men sacrificed their lives for the motherland in the very first days of war. The end is bitter and most of the main characters are either killed or taken prisoners after being wounded. The only survivor is young Akimov, who manages to escape and carry on the fight until the final victory.
The whole movie was filmed on the actual location of the Brest Fortress in Belorussia, and it is very captivating due to the perfect costumes and incredible visual effects, which have become trademarks in Russian films these past ten years. The acting is also top level, and overall the film is more than worth the time it takes to watch it.
From the linguistic side, it is a very useful movie, since it allows viewers to hear and feel all the soft words of the pure Russian language. Naturally, the language is what could be heard during that era, and viewers will be able to catch many abbreviations that came into Russian during the Soviet period and still remain in modern times. This is often the hardest part for non-native speakers to understand, and it can be more than interesting to hear. Also, in this film, viewers may notice some pretty strange sentence constructions (to non-natives), which sound so great in Russian. Simply, in many occasions, the main characters will only say two or three words and leave the rest to be guessed, as Russians often do in conversation. Of course, since this is a war movie, there are some limitations imposed by the mentality of the military men, but the language adds to the authenticity of the whole movie.
What is even more important is that this film is based on real events, and the filmmakers succeeded in recreating the atmosphere of that time. Those used to Hollywood productions will discover that not every film needs a happy ending, which may come as a shock to some.
