The Brest Fortress / Brestskaya krepost [DVD, REGION ALL][ENGLISH SUBTITLES]

This is a good movie, by any standard. If you are interested in this subject or interested in getting something from the Russian point of view then you will like this movie. I have read some rather silly and uninformed reviews of this movie - some of which gave positive star ratings, but then slag it off as propaganda, etc. I'll give these people the benefit of the doubt that they are not as familiar as I am with Soviet history, the Great Patriotic War or Russian culture in general, but this film can hardly be characterized as "communist" propaganda. Since this film is based on real events and real people each of the central characters are given a bit of an obit towards the end by the makers of the film. They do not fail to mention the repression suffered by one officer posthumously awarded the "Hero of the Soviet Union". As well they note the fact that the others received the award - not at the time, but many, many years later - post Stalin. For an American viewer that might not mean much, but to a Russian it speaks volumes. The heroism of these men in defending their fort, families and country being recognized with the order of "Hero of the Soviet Union" after Stalin's death is as good as saying "Stalin" and the Soviets threw these guys under the bus and failed to recognize them - we are making up for it now. Russians are not real show boaters or braggarts. They tend to be inscrutably subtle. That can be a little tough for some Americans to pick up on right away. Others criticized the happy scenes that opened the film - as if such happy scenes never existed in the Soviet Union, but again, if you know anything about the War or the culture at the time, you would understand that the film opens on the longest day of the year and the start of summer. It is traditionally a big family day, a picnic and party in the park kind of day - not only then in the Soviet Union, but even now in Russia. Those scenes ring absolutely true and having read many first person accounts and having spoken to many pensioners and veterans who were alive at the time - none of whom were commissars or apparatchiks - they all described similar scenes on that fateful day in their own lives. It was the day the war started. Others take the opportunity to use their review seemingly not to address the movie and the story itself, but as an occasion to review the sum total of the Soviet experience. Folks, it is movie about a group of soldiers overrun and surrounded on the first day of the war, coping with all the shock and unimaginable horrors that was the war in the East. It is not a treatise on the benefits and glories of the Soviet Union - and it doesn't come across that way either. Some people can't get off their soapbox for even two hours. The people who were trapped there and ultimately died there - sorry, there is no "Saving Private Ryan" ending - were heroes. In that moment, in those circumstances and context, in that small corner of that gigantic front and war - far, far away from the halls of power in Berlin or Moscow, London or Washington - be they a communist or simple soldier, a civilian or a child - they were the ones facing head on the horror of the Nazis, not some armchair wannabe general leaving his review here - and they died heroes. It is a powerful, powerful movie. Generally great performances throughout. Very human portrayals and not unidimensional characters. A normal person will be moved to tears by the close of the film. And it is a worthy and no doubt overdue testament to those people who died in those first terrible days of the war in the East.

World War II was a much more devastating event for Russia. They lost 20,000,000+ people. We lostabout 400,000. They gave up land and lives to buy time and they moved their manufacturing further East and ittook a long time to get things ready to go on the offensive. (During the cold war, Russia lied about their population in big areas of their country. Where there were supposed to be big populations, there weren't. They had been lost in the war.) Before the war, Stalin had purged the brains out of his military and that was an enormous problem for the Soviets at the start of the war. The Germans seriously under estimated Russia partly base on the Finnish-Russian war where the Finns lost 10% of their population. But anybody who knows Russians should have known that they were a whole different species when you attack the mother land. A reasonable German officer should have looked at Brest and the trouble it took and then at the maps and said, "Screw this!" But no they had to go ahead and invaded a vast land where ferocious defense cost them time, men, and material. An old joke goes that the Russians lost 100 men and 5 tanks but killed 20 Germans and 2 tanks. They were celebrating the great victory because soon there would be no more Germans. Eventually, Zhukov showedthe Germans what offensive really meant. The Germans were like a few beetles in the path of 20,000,000 driver ants. Tanks, artillery, and whole armies swarmed from the East in an overwhelming tide. The fights atBrest, and Stalingrad, and Kursk bought this offensive capability with Russian lives.So this is what this attack on Brest and the sacrificial stalling defense means to the Russians. Now this territory was in Poland, but the people living there knewvery well what the Germans were and what conquest would mean. Stalin and Hitler had invaded Poland anddivided it up. A lot of Poles had been deported by Stalin and Germany was going after the Jews and political leaders in their part of Poland. Politically, Brest was under the Soviets when Germany attacked. So this was the first attack on what the Soviets considered Mother Land, They had a lot of Alamos--this was the first. The movie was greatand showed what true ferocity is when Russians defend their homeland. And since in Russia that is muchof what the Great Patriotic War means to them, this movie seems to have been put together with care and love by everybodyinvolved. It shows. I highly recommend this film.

If I had the option, I would give it a 9 stars review. A really good production that encompasses drama, action, war, love, emotion, HISTORY and every element one could look for when watching a WWII movie. Unlike holywood that bases their movies on wokeness and PC topics, Russians make great movies now, based on historical facts. This is a GREAT movie for someone that knows, studies or simply wants to know what happened in the past, how we got here and what were the events that changed this world as we know it. Of course you will see some"motherland" pride and the structure of a "soon-to-come here" system but, if you are able to get past it, you will really enjoy this movie. GREAT acting from young to old, great filming with MINIMAL CGI graphics - mostly with real actors, effects, stunts and supporting material like REAL tanks, cannons, etc... Same style as T-34 and White Tiger. JUST A GREAT MOVIE.

I'm not crying, I was cutting onions 😭😭

A very effective action/war drama based on the real events of the defence of the Brest Fortress in Belarus, occupied by the Soviets at the beginning of the Nazi invasion of 1941.The film is, apparently closely based on the real events and people who were there, though the historical facts have been the subject of dispute in times past; the tenacity and ferocity of the Soviet defence is however, not in dispute and the actions portrayed in the film reflect this. Only the brief, rather unconvincing flying scenes of the CGI Stukas let the realism of the battle scenes down.Lead characters and relationships are established to engage the viewer in a fairly formulaic manner - but it works nevertheless - and one should feel moved by the story, as this episode in the war truly was heroic in the face of a ruthless and militarily superior enemy force.A decent addition to any war film collection and certainly worth your viewing time.The UK DVD release does have English subtitles, though you may be required to adjust the screen setting ratio of your TV in order to view them. There are no extras other than the trailer.

The 29-day siege of the Russian fortress at Brest is, at least outside the old Soviet Union, a largely forgotten piece of Second World War heroism against the odds. It has no easy heroes (fascists besieging communists) and had the additional misfortune of only being revealed by an investigative journalist after the Cold War was already firmly under way. Unlike the heroics in places such as Stalingrad, referred to in many a Hollywood film, the siege of Brest as a result has not achieved similar international cinematic fame.However, the 2010 Russian film Fortress of War does it and its heroes justice. If you look online, you will find it has scored some bad reviews, but almost all are from people taking exception to it being a subtitled film. The packaging does not make this clear, though personally I'm quite happy to watch subtitled films so it doesn't matter much to me (save that the subtitle of the opening caption is in poor English and clearly missing some parts).Aside from subtitles, and rather more importantly, the film features very impressive cinematography. Many of the scenes contain snippets of action which are familiar from other war films - plane being shot down and pilot bailing out, desperate soldiers making foolhardy charge and so on. Yet there is a freshness and originality about the way these scenes are framed and shot.Generally the film seems to stick close to the actual historical account, avoiding some of the myths which have grown up and (praise be!) also avoiding some of the crass re-writing that sometimes goes on to make a film fit a formula. No dropping in of fictional US servicemen to steal the scenes here. (See  U-571 [DVD] [2000 ] for an example if you wonder what I mean.)It also does a very good job of evoking wider historical themes without belabouring them. The viewer comes away knowing something about the Soviet Union's official blindness to the German build-up prior to invasion in 1941, the chaotic absence of sensible orders in the face of attack, the tension between professional soldiers and political commissars and the fear of speaking your mind, all without feeling bludgeoned by crude symbolism or earnestness in the film making.Centre stage all through are the soldiers holding out against massive odds, with a high performing cast giving their characters depth. It all makes for an enjoyable watch. U-571 [DVD] [2000

I ordered this film after having recently watched a couple of other Russian made WWII films (Come and See, and Star). Having been impressed the those films I took the chance on Fortress of War. I like to think that I know bit about WWII, but, have to admit that I didn't know much (if anything about the siege of the Brest Fortress in June of 1941).Germany launched their surprise against the Soviet Union in June 1941, they expected to over run/ take the Brest Fortress in a matter of hours. The Soviet units in the Fortress were caught completely by surprise (although in the film one of the officers of the Red Army had been warning of a German attack and was under investigation for scaremongering). However, the Soviet units managed to organise pockets of resistance and prevented the Germans from taking the Fortress for around 9 days (they also managed to kill and wound a good number of German troops in the process).The film is told from the perspective of an old man telling his grandson about the battle that he had lived through whilst the same age as his grandson. The main character ( at the time of the battle) is an orphan who lives in the Fortress with his older brother, both are in the Red Army .The characterisation is strong and I found myself identifying with the main characters portrayed in the film.I've seen some reviews that claim that this film, in its opening scenes portrays life in the Soviet Union at that time as some sort of workers paradise and does not mention anything about the repression of the time. Well, you do get a slight insight into that aspect, as mentioned above, one of the Red Army officers is under investigation by the NKVD for scaremongering.But, the focus of this film is not on the experience of life in the Soviet Union at that time, it is about the battle fought in and around the Fortress, and papers to be a very realistic account of the events that took place there.As with other Russian films that deal with this subject matter I found that the producers paid great detail to the equipment used in 1941 - weapons, uniforms and the armoured car that makes an appearance. They went to some effort to make the tanks used actually look like Panzer Mk III's too.All in all, I'd have to say that if you like war films with extremely good characterisation, attention to detail and a thumping good story line then you MUST see the Fortress of War.

Der Film erzählt die Ereignisse der deutschen Überfalls auf die Sowjetunion am 22. Juni 41 in der Grenzfestung Brest aus der Sicht des kleinen Sascha, Trompeter in der Militärkapelle der sowjt. Truppen.Es werden die erschütternden Kämpfe gezeigt, die um die Festung tobten.Militärische Grundprinzipien (Feuer und Bewegung, überschlagendes Vorgehen, Feuerschutz) werden außer Acht gelassen und fehlen in der Darstellung. Es wird wild aufeinander losgegangen. Zumindest am Anfang des Russlandfeldzuges unterstelle ich aber mal, dass es auf beiden Seiten genügend ausgebildete Soldaten gab.Unter dem Aspekt Action mag das aber zu verschmerzen sein. Insgesamt punktet der Film für mich mit besagter Action, Ausstattung und durchaus auch mit Glaubwürdigkeit.Das die deut. Truppen durchaus mit den vorhandenen Truppen Mühe hatten und mehr Zeit als gedacht brauchten, die Festung einzunehmen sehe ich darin begründet, dass die Blitzkriegstheorie eben zum Inhalt hat, befestigte Plätze und starke Abwehr zu umgehen, tief mit dem Hauptteil der (gepanzerten) Truppen ins Hinterland vorzudringen und den Nachschub und sonstige Verbindungen abzuschneiden. Der Film erzählt das auch, als der sowjetische Flieger den deutschen Offizier bestätigt, dass die deutschen Verbände bereits hinter Minsk stehen würden. Das die sowjet. Verteidiger auf verlorenen Posten standen, war relativ schnell klar. dass der Diktator Stalin sie dann auch noch bestrafte, als der überlebende Rest in Kriegsgefangenschaft ging, ist mir auch aus anderen Quellen bekannt. Das Sowjetregime betrachtete aber ausnahmslos jeden als Verräter, der sich ergab und nach dem Krieg wanderten viele in den Gulag. Ich verstand den Film auch so, dass für die Verteidiger eine Art Mythos, eine Art Rechtfertigung und Bekanntwerden ihres Handelns und ihres Schicksals geschaffen werden soll. Das wurde mit der Einblendung der drei Offiziere offenkundig, die posthum in den späten 60er Jahren Helden der Sowjetunion wurden. Da hat es auch etwas gedauert, da der Diktator bereits 1953 verstarb.Als die Deutschen 1939 die Festung von den Polen eroberten, ging das wesentlich schneller, da mehr Truppen eingesetzt wurden. Das die Festung dann im Zuge des Hitler-Stalin-Paktes an die Russen fiel, ist eine andere Geschichte.Insgesamt war der Film absolut O.K., ich würde ihn mir auch ein zweites Mal anschauen.

I have been waiting for this to get a Region 2 release, it was originally called The Brest Fortress and available in Region 1. It starts with a young boy and how he plays for the marching band. He tells the story through the lives that lived and died through out the siege. It was June 22 1941 and the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the Russians' under Comrade Stalin guidance had signed the Molotov Ribbentrov pact of non aggression. They had no orders to defend their borders, in fact the previous day; Russia had delivered vital war materials to the German regime.Then they attacked with out warning and without a formal declaration of war. The Russians were neutered. The Brest Fortress was not really a fortress but an 18th Century fortress/garrison that had long since become obsolete. The men had their families stationed with them, it was a sprawling Victorian style base of operations that could never withstand a modern barrage, let alone the might of the Wermacht.Once the attack begins the Russians are in disarray, but soon mainly due to the Commissars, they get organised, but they have very few weapons and little ammunition. The Germans had already infiltrated their lines and cut off both power and water. They have no choice but to fight. Any attempt at a break out is met with German aggression. Once they start defending the 'Motherland' they use everything, from chairs to barrels and spades. This is a very real war film, where hand to hand fighting is shown up close and personal.It does not shrink from any of the realities of war and does not glorify anything - except for the human spirit. The cinematography is excellent; the acting is superb, especially from the younger members of the cast. Whilst they scavenge the German weapons and try anything to defend themselves they realise they are already out flanked. They are without food, without water and without hope - but they fight on.This is truly an excellent film, I was constantly reminded of `Come and See', and it is that good. Russia continues to surprise, and Hollywood could learn a thing or two from this production. It has emotion, violence, drama and heart by the bucket load. This is one for all fans of war films, even the music is excellent - I can not recommend this highly enough, and it is one to buy- not rent as you will want to see it again, after you have got over your first viewing that is - ruddy brilliant!