I don't understand why I had never heard of this film before. It was by accident that I found it, so I gave it a whirl.And Wow! I think you could write a novelette on what makes this a great film. There's just too much to say in a review, so I'll be general.This war film is about Russians fighting against Germans in World War II. In ways, it is much like old American World War II films, with the spotlight on a small group of soldiers in one unit.The director does so much that is superior that I can't even begin to start on his achievement here.The film shows us the reality of war, including the "down time" in between conflicts, when soldiers peruse the low points.Yet we are never bored, even when the action is supplanted by drama. The reason is that the script is so well written, and I must also congratulate whomever translated this into English for me, because its dialog would make any American film writer jealous.One of the clever things our writer-director team does is keep the reality in the beginning by not letting us know who will survive, and who may be a central character.Two characters dominate the story, a lady's man and a cook. However, the other characters are also spectacular.What really makes this film work is the humor, a dark humor, but a realistic one, and one that will make you laugh and cry and the same time. When one old veteran tells the story of his trench disease, you'll laugh along with the other soldiers. It's one of those stories that is Hell when you live it, but hilarious when you tell it after the war.For me, the magical part is something that I can't say without a spoiler.The camera work is amazing. The drama is amazing. The theatrics is amazing. Okay, it's all amazing.

"The time is fast approaching when to call a man a patriot will be the deepest insult you can offer him. Patriotism now means advocating plunder in the interest of the privileged classes of the particular State system into which we have happened to be born." - Leo Tolstoy "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!" - Albert Einstein "Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy." - George Bernard Shaw The legendary Sergei Bondarchuk directs "They Fought For the Motherland", a war film set in Russia during the second half of 1942. The film opens with a magnificent shot, a prowling camera gliding through swaying fields of wheat before finding the exhausted Soviet army trudging through a canyon far below. They're in full retreat, having been recently crushed by the invading might of a German Panzer division.We then spend some time with the men, watching as they rest and recuperate. They chat and trade stories, before their commander selects a few for a special mission. Turns out our heroes have been ordered to hold a ridge, their small infantry regiment tasked with holding back the German forces so that their exhausted comrades may withdraw back to Stalingrad, where the Russians are preparing to make an epic final stand. Sam Fuller did this sort of "rag-tag rear guard group of soldiers vs an approaching enemy horde" thing better and with more nuance and complexity, but Bondarchuk is the better visualist. His camera conveys the sheer boredom and exhaustion of these men, and his battle scenes are at times impressive, the expansiveness of the Russian countryside lending his battles a scale which most British and American war productions lack.The film eventually settles down into a predictable rhythm, alternating between giant battles and intimate moments of downtime, Bondarcuk allowing his cast's sentiments, fears and attitudes to gently unfold whenever the bullets aren't flying. The film reduces war to the usual traits - everyman soldiers, fatigue, fear, fun, friendship, boredom, heroism, horror, death, homesickness, cowardice, orders etc – and like most of these films, its attempts at portraying war with "balance" and "truth" can't mask how myopic it ultimately all is. A more poetic version of "Saving Private Ryan", the film was financed by the state and the Russian ministry of defence and serves only to glorify war, heroism, compliance, servitude, and act as a low-key form of propaganda.Like "Saving Private Ryan", the film also ends with sad shots of the Russian flag, close ups of the battered faces of warriors, old men dropping to their knees, utilises various subtle tactics toward propagandistic ends and sports a narrative in which we're manipulated into morning the loss of our everyman heroes, who bravely stood up against foes superior in number. By the time the film ends, a throwaway line urging us to hate our enemies, akin to "Ryan's" nationalistic/militaristic "earn this", goes by almost unnoticed. 7/10 – Worth one viewing.

In July 1942, in the Second World War, the rearguard of the Russian army protects the bridgehead of the Don River against the German army while the retreating Russian troops cross the bridge heading to Stanlingrad. While they move back to the Russian territory through the countryside, the soldiers show their companionship, sentiments, fears and heroism to defend their motherland Russian."Oni Srazhalis za Rodinu" a.k.a. "They Fought for Their Country" is a realistic war movie, with action and drama very well balanced. The greatest flaw in the screenplay is the usual exaggerated propaganda of the heroism of the soldiers, but it is nothing offensive to the viewer. This film has not been released in Brazil on VHS or DVD and I watched an unofficial DVD that skips the subtitles for long periods and consequently many dialogs are lost. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Eles Lutam por Sua Pátria" ("They Fight for their Motherland")

They fought For Their Motherland is a screen adoption of the prize winning novel by Mikhail Sholokhovis and is directed by proclaimed Russian director Sergi Bondarchuk. It was nominated for the prestigious palme d'Or at Cannes film festival in 1975; which illustrate how powerful the film is. Approval for the film adoption of the Great Patriotic War came from the Russian Ministry of Defence via the Russian cinema council.The film concentrates on a small number of individual regimental soldiers fighting within a larger battalion on the Russian Steppes in 1942. We are shown not noble soldiers and distinguished officers of the "glorious" Red Army, but ordinary fighting men. They are hungry, dirty, mentally and physically drained. Also, they are exhausted by their continuous 12 months retreat eastwards towards the river Donn and eventually Stalingrad. The soldiers find harmony in talking about home, family and express their emotions and feeling on the war and what it as done to them as people and their motherland. Location is presented impressively on film; firstly, by using wide angel lenses to capture the vast midst of the Steppe salt marches and corn fields. Secondly, by using close angel lenses to photograph the soldiers as they pass through, rest and interact with nervous civilians in the inhabited dwellings. With a large budget comes large battle scenes. The film shows the merciless destruction of land and villages by Luftwaffe air strikes. Defensive formations containing a whole battalion which is broad in scale and includes large battle formation shoots. The film doesn't over exaggerate when handling the destruction, human cost and horror of battle in its scenes. The main depiction of war, battle and destruction are powerfully focused on individual soldiers. This film tells a similar story for many veteran soldiers of the second world war, whatever the nationality. Boredom, fatigue, fear, fun, friendship, enemies, orders, pain, loss, distress, death and a longing to go home.They Fought For Their Motherland" tours the inferno imposed upon the soviet people, both military and civilian, on one side by the advancing, all concurring, disciplined German army. And on the other by years of hardship, personal sacrifice, poverty and living to the ideologist view of the soviet dictatorship. This is not the most graphic of war films in todays standard of brutal, realistic, fast passed combat movies. There are scenes of battle sustained injuries and death. However, this film focuses the humanity of war and what it does to the land, and the opinions of people in occupied nations towards the soldiers who are there to protect them. This is a patriotic film from a Russian point of view, which for many years, as at the time of release, future Russian generations, and other nations that fought in the red army, should look back with pride and honour towards those who fought, and died, for their motherland.