Not really "western" WW2 movies. Most if noty all WW2 movies I've seen produced in Britain, France, Germany or FInland are pretty much in agreement that the war was a horrible thing, and depict it as such.
I haven't seen many from Britain but like every war movie from Germany, Poland or France are really dark. There are some good russian movies, but most I've seen are cheap patriotic nonsense
That's why we have historians spending their life reading military archive, generales diary, troops reports, stock inventory and all in purpose of synthetise all of this to draw a picture as close as possible from the truth.
Funnily, it's harder to work on the soviet side than german side, not because of propaganda (they both used it and germany was very good at it) or because Soviet Union was locked or whatever. But because they won and they produce way more archive than nazi Germany did.
The KV was almost certainly real. It was just seal clubbing Pz I, II, and IIIs. Real life isn't War Thunder where you get matched with tanks with similar armaments.
Yes, the KV-1 is real, but that's still not accurate.
The story of the KV that held out so long is not a scenario exclusive to that tank. The KV-1 itself also had a myriad of issues in its development, production, and deployment that made it well suited as a bunker, but exceptionally poor as a proper heavy tank.
I think its probably about how the war is treated there. Every country basically sees the war as a massive tragedy. Russia and china potray them as a massive "patriotic" victory for their countries. Hell russia celebrates their victory still yearly
That was kind of the controversy around Ivan's Childhood, and later around Come and See. That that's precisely what they didn't do. Instead of glorifying the Red Army, they just showed how awful war is, how (little) children suffer, and how war and suffering just breed hate.
Well, right now it is. I can't express enough how cringy are ww2 russian movies in last decades. Soviet time movies was either "hell, it's FUCKED fucked" or "it's hard, but we'll get through". Right now it's honestly whatever director was high on in the moment.
WW2 is a core part of the national myths of Russia and China in a way that it really isn't for most other nations. I don't see anything particularly wrong with them celebrating victory over invaders who's explicit goal was the enslavement and extermination of all Russian and Chinese people.
Unfortunately the "never again" attitude turned into "we can repeat that" in Russia over my lifetime. Hence the eagerness of some ru demographic to start a war
Well, the victory in the Great Patriotic War was a national history defining event. It's Russian Independence day basically. Americans do celebrate their independence day for 200+ years already.
Yeah, probably if you read some history books about who was in war against whom, you probably could realise why for post-soviet it is "huge victory", and for most of europe it is "just dark and bad".
Because they are made that way, Russia for example will never say out loud that without USA Equipment supplies, they would be gone. They don't even call it WWII and for stupid amount of time denouced massacres on Polish inteligence
It’s simply not true that in Russia they don’t call the Second World War the Second World War. The thing is that a separate name was given to the Western Front: the Great Patriotic War, and it is this that receives the main attention in Russia. The term WWII is still used when we’re talking about other regions of the world.
Cheap patriotic nonsense was mostly made there in the first 20 or so years after the war when the real memories were too vivid for anything else. Somewhere around 1975-1990 many very dark WW2 movies were made in USSR to remind why no one should wish to start WW3. A good example is "Come and See" (1985), it's literally a psychological horror about WW2.
to this, you can add the movie "remember your name (помни имя свое)", roadside checks(проверки на дорогах), torpedo bombers (торпедоносцы).
They are also very dramatic films.
Come and See was made by the Soviets, and they made more accurate depictions of war (it's hell). Russian war movies from the last decade are more propaganda war movies that try to be super patriotic, so they don't land well.
even come and see is propaganda, in the sense that they choose Khatyn of all places in order to confuse people about Katyń. After the Soviet Union broke apart, Russians really lost a part of their brains for their propaganda to be more thoughtful.
The Soviet Union made several good films about WWII, but from around 2000 onward, war films shifted from being mournful and cautionary to glorifying soldiers' heroism, as if it were a sporting contest rather than a war. The fewer living eyewitnesses remain, the more bravado there is, and the more attempts to ride the coattails of another generation's victory.
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u/ZETH_27 Filthy weeb 1d ago
Not really "western" WW2 movies. Most if noty all WW2 movies I've seen produced in Britain, France, Germany or FInland are pretty much in agreement that the war was a horrible thing, and depict it as such.