http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5iHJDnJcX8 I am three minutes into this one-courtesy of HULU-and I LIKE. It seems the country that produced Tolstoy really is up to finally presenting their side of the WWII story-and doing a Bondarchuk class job of it. JeffinMNUSA Later...so OK-it's a pretty herky jerky cinematic piece-but it does do some great work with the sights and sounds of that arctic famine, and does explore a previously forbidden subject-that being the fact that cannibalism was resorted to in this extreme situation. The flick covers the early days of the seige, the horrors of the famine, and ends with the creation of the ice road over Lake Ladoga. Maybe not a movie for everybody-but a definite must see for those who have read the books, especially those unfamiliar with arctic weather. I am hoping to see more from this director, but I think he should consider using all Russian characters in the next screenplay.
It does explore the horrendous man made famine in it's worst days, and is NOT a movie for the thinskinned. The PAIN comes at you like a freight train, and I cannot help but suspect that many in the cast and production company had family members in the Leningrad seige.
Thanks. Just bought a copy a couple of hours ago. I had read a bit about the siege. I am a big Dimitri Shostakovitch fan and there a wonderful and heart wrenching documentary about his life called "The War Symphonies" that shows sickening footage of starving people just keeling over into snow banks to die. To this day people don't lay flowers on the tombs of those who died in the siege, they put down food.
