Cross of Iron 4K 1977

Everyone is looking for something in this life. Whether it's recognition, success, or achieving certain goals; an encouraging word from the old fate that has finally decided to open the right road for you, my old friend. Now you can finally see the place where the iron crosses grow. Thousands of mutilated bodies somewhat spoil this sublime epic - a series of heroic sagas about brave soldiers/officers during the Last Great Massacre, ready to entertain you, to make you shed tears and sincerely sympathize with the Soviet or American hero and sometimes - with his team, performing their mission so resolutely and selflessly that the bowl with popcorn will be empty in the middle of 3 monologues of the protagonist. What would your reaction be if you were forced to look at the other side of the coin?

Sam Pekinpa. A director who dared to show the German people not from the side of a little boy wandering through the ruins of Berlin looking for bread or a brave German industrialist who originally wanted to make money and had to become a hero. No, this is not a moralizing parable about cruelty, fear and self-sacrifice against the backdrop of a dying generation of upright apes. Not the rapturous mute cries of Leni Riefenstahl or the artistic propaganda of Friedrich Ermler. It's just the Iron Cross and Sgt. Steiner, a German soldier who is tired of the absurdity of it all. He and Hitler's terrible army, which is mostly shown in the form of ordinary soldiers, who no longer really want to understand why they were thrown to the Eastern Front and given shooting sticks in their hands. However, Pekinpa is no dreamer either. Steiner is counterbalanced by the recently arrived Stransky. The Prussian aristocrat, who has barely assumed command, almost immediately declares his long-held dream of acquiring the Iron Cross. And it does not matter that this is just a small shard from the Moloch of the then propaganda, an element for the envy of all, received in exchange for a certain number of human lives. Just one more little detail for future memoirs.

Yes, Soviet soldiers are killed in this movie, which cannot but cause at least twofold feelings in the Russian-speaking viewer. All the characters seem to be familiar to you, evoking vague associations with Hemingway's "Farewell, Guns!" Hemingway or Celine's "North." The same relentless confrontation between different classes in Russian/German bombed-out trenches. The same people dreaming of peace and striving to find again what was in everyone's past. And if you manage to wall yourself off for 2 hours, set a barrier for your just hatred, you will enjoy watching a really fascinating movie. Otherwise... Well, you know all about it.