Fate of a Man AKA Sudba Cheloveka 1959

                                                        Fate of a Man AKA Sudba Cheloveka 1959

This is one of the movies that didn’t make the Nazi cult films list on the taste of cinema website.

This is a Russian produced film that tells the story of Andrei Sokolov, who was a Russian soldier captured by the Germans. During the three years that he spent as a prisoner of war, his wife and kids are killed by bombing raids on his village. This is a bitter tale with the only real good thing that happens is that he manages to survive and reunite with his grandson, with the hopes that they can have some type of normal life.

 

This is a strong drama that is a story about the war. It focuses more on the individuals and his personal story than battles or action. Throughout the story, they try and show atrocities that the Germans committed to the Russians during the war. They show a group of commanders and Jews executed before they take the rest of the prisoners to camps. There is a scene of the Russians digging graves for mass burials, and they show a very large group of the dead. The Nazis in the camp are depicted as being sadistic; in one instance an officer pushes a Russian prisoner off a high quarry mountain because he was smiling after making it up there while carrying a large rock. The commander toys with Sokolov, threatening to execute him for complaining about unfair conditions.

This is an excellent film that is easily as good as any American war film from this time period. The director makes good use of angles in the scenes throughout the movie. There was a good close up shot of his wife when he was initially departing for war. There are some great aerial shots in a scene where Sokolov is driving an ammunition truck that the Germans are trying to bomb. There is a nice scene that shows all of the prisoners traveling up to a partially bombed church. They shoot from low angles of the German commander, to make him look superior. Then are high angle shots of him from behind, making all of the prisoners look small and inferior.

This movie is a little known Russian film that should be seen in order to get the perspective of the war from the Russians point of view.