Dark Blue World
|
Our Price: $74.98 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $14.81 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Dark Blue World
Movie Review: Excellent story, well directed and well acted - Highly Recommend
Summary: 5 Stars
The director develops his characters well and creates a lovely complex story against a historical back drop.
Don't let subtitles put you off - this one is worth it.
Movie Review: Dark Blue World
Summary: 4 Stars
Dark blue world is one of the finest foreign war films I seen to date. Everyone involved really seemed to care about the project they were involved in and the result is a very entertaining and for the most part accurate depiction of the side of WWII we very rarely get to see. What we have here is a story of two Czech pilots, Franta and Karel, who upon the occupation of their country decide to jump ship and head for England to enlist in the RAF. Just how they get to England at the end of 1939 remains a mystery, but it suffices to say that many Czechs, Poles and French crossed the Channel to England, in time for the Summer of 1940. The two pilots leave behind their families and loved ones, actually one of the most endearing scenes is where Franta has to leave his beloved dog behind, and are accepted into the foreign ranks of the RAF, where they undergo a series of training scenes, including a brilliant section on learning English and formation flying, on bicycles! They have to contend with sitting around waiting to be called into the Battle of Britain after their training is complete as the RAF were very reluctant to let the Czechs and Poles get involved in "their finest hour". Only when things heated up, where the foreign contingent called in. This leads to the meat of the film, the superbly done battle sequences. This is where the films producers have outdone Hollywood easily. One can feel the cramped condition of the cockpit, the desperate nature of aerial combat and the horror of being shot down. When bullets and cannon fire strike a spitfire in this film you know it. For the most part the two combatants aircraft are represented well. Although the spitfires are mid-war and late-war models and the 109's are Spanish built buchons. But both are effective. The computer animated heinkels are also very well done as are the out-takes from the 1969 film "Battle of Britain", cleaned up and inserted seamlessly into the finished movie.It's during one of these "shooting down" sequences that one of our pilots, Karel, meets Susan played by Tara Fitzgerald. The obligatory love interest. Fitzgerald is a potential war widow, whose husband has been feared lost in the Atlantic, with the Navy. The pilot, the younger of the two, falls instantly for the older woman and becomes besotted by her. This is where the friendship of the two Czech pilot's is severely tested as later the older pilot, Franta, falls for Fitzgerald too who in turn falls in love with him. Complicated.......yeah?
The love distraction doesn't really interfere with the run of the film too much and the action sequences more than make up for there lack of pace, but I'm I the only person whose sick of filmmakers dispersing petty love stories into war movies? They usually don't work very well.
There are flaws though. I would have liked to see more of the Battle of Britain section and the hardships endured by fighter command in the summer of 1940 and the later war years are inserted without any real knowledge of what period of the war we're in. Another technical flaw is the camouflage of the spitfires doesn't change throughout the war, they remain in the 1940 pattern of green and brown when they should have been painted green and gray after 1941. The flashback sequences of Franta, from a Soviet forced-labour camp after the war, doesn't really work as a framing device, but it does introduce us to some interesting characters such as an SS doctor which Slava shares his prison with. The SS doctor is presented as a man and not the usual cardboard nazi monster of Hollywood movies. It's quite refreshing to see. Also at the beginning, the Czech pilots talk about flying to Poland and helping them. However, I very much doubt that any Czechs would have flown North to Poland as antagonisms between Poland and Czechoslovakia were still very strong from the polish seizing of the Teschen region of Czechoslovakia in the late '30s. But the flaws are small when placed into the whole film and only someone with an above average interest in World War II will notice them. There is one problem with DVD presentation of the film though. It's to do with the subtitling of the movie itself. The DVD will allow you to have the subtitles either on or off, in other words the English captions are onscreen even when the English speaking characters are speaking English. This can be very annoying and very distracting. Its also quite lazy of the DVD's manufacturer as the English captions can easily be turned off when English is being spoken onscreen.
Overall, if you like war movies and especially war movies based on aircraft and air warfare, then you will like "Dark blue world". It certainly blows some recent war movies out of the water and is entertaining in its own right. The subject matter is one you will probably not see onscreen again and the 1940 atmosphere is presented perfectly, as is the difficulties in trying to blend foreign volunteers into a generally mono-ethnic combat force. The acting from everyone concerned is spot-on and Charles Dance fits in as an airfield commander.
Movie Review: Poignant Hindsight of War Memories...
Summary: 4 Stars
Dark Blue World depicts the story of Franta (Ondrej Vetchý), an officer of the Czechoslovakian air force, that has been imprisoned after having served for the British Royal Air Force (RAF) in their fight against the Nazi's during World War II. When Franta returned to his motherland after the war the Russian communists had occupied the country and fear that those who fought with the Brits would once more fight for freedom lead the communists to lock them all up in prison, or so called labor camps. Franta was confined to one of these labor camps where the prison captain was a rough thug that seemed to take pleasure in tormenting and beating up the inmates. The prison captain was uncaring of any health issues as he merely demanded the men to work while encouraging them to work by letting them know that the only way of escaping his presence was by the cart that carries out the dead. Delirious in a high fever, Franta ultimately passes out as he is brought to the infirmary where he recovers under the hand of a former SS-officer while pondering over his past transgressions.
In flashbacks the audience is brought into the past where Franta's memories begin with the moments before the Nazi's occupied Czechoslovakia without bloodshed. The only fighting that Franta faces is from one of his younger flyers, Karel (Krystof Hádek) , who displayed his resentment to the Germans while handing over the keys to the hangar with the planes. Offended and saddened by the event Franta decides to travel wherever he can to fight the Germans as he brings the young Karel with him on a journey that brings both of them to England. In England Franta is assigned a group of Czechoslovakians that spend more time learning English and practicing flying with bicycles as the learn how to fly in group formations than they do flying. This ends up being a little demoralizing as they were in high spirits to get up in the sky and shoot down German Messerschmidts. However, the day arrives when they are allowed to take to the sky, but soon they realize the painful nature of war as people die, people fall in love, and people get hurt.
War brings agony to everyone as people are left in a twilight unknowing whether someone dear is dead or alive. Jan Sverák captures this moment in this film through several characters and their personal lives as they must find a way to continue to strive for something better: peace, freedom, and happiness. In this struggle, which is tremendously wearing on the emotional aspect of mankind, people must grab affection when it is given and nurture it with the best of their ability. One scene that brings the essence of affection to the audience is where Karel mentions that he liked one of the fallen pilots, but never told him. Franta responds that he probably knew as men do not openly display their affection. However, Karel insists that the fallen friend did not know, as he was more annoyed with the dead man's idiosyncrasies, and now he wishes that he would have told him before he died.
Dark Blue World is a poignant cinematic experience much like Jan Sverák's previous film Kolya (1996), which won an Oscar for best foreign film in 1997. However, Dark Blue World does not have the warmth as Kolya did. It is also missing uniqueness as this film has aspects comparable to previous war films such as Battle of Britain (1969), English Patient (1996), Pearl Harbor (2001), and Enemy at the Gates (2001). Nonetheless, the film succeeds in standing on its own feet as it it offers a film event with a wealth of character and wisdom.
Movie Review: Convincingly presented Czech perspective on the Battle of Britain
Summary: 4 Stars
There's a compelling story here, that hasn't been told before, of the Czech pilots who fled Czechoslovakia to join the RAF at the beginning of WW II. A collection of warm and convincing performances by the leads show the bond between men during war time, intercut with aerial scenes which are surprisingly and convincingly authentic.. these are real planes up there, and one of the films key strengths is it's feeling of how tangible these planes are, both on and off the ground. This is done by some clever photography, but also by re-using some of the skirmishes shot for `Battle of Britain' back in 1969... seamlessly done so you'd never know it. The end result is you don't have that aftertaste that computer generated flying scenes leave you with of watching a photo realistic cartoon where the physics is not.. quite.. right. Indeed, when real planes are used as they are here, they feel like one of the characters of the movie, so evocative they are of the time. They genuinely feel you can reach out and touch them, and when you hear them, you just know it is real, not some sound engineer's creation.
On the other hand, the bond between men has been illustrated with a somewhat hackneyed story line- two men fall for the same lady during war time, and this aspect, though sweet enough with characters we care about, feels like an overused plot device. Tara Fitzgerald is the weakest of the main leads, let down by a script which fails in this key romantic thread of the story to feel organic and real, contrasted by the way it succeeds so well in the rest of the movie at illustrating the experience of Czech pilots in the RAF in an authentic and uncontrived way. The themes of the movie and sensitivity of the direction mean this is by no means a fatal flaw, merely a quibble in an otherwise satisfying and well balanced movie.
The main story in this central part is contrasted by scenes from 5 years after the war, in a Czech labour camp. To the unititated this is certainly the most surprising part of the story, how the heroes of the Battle of Britain returned to Czechoslovakia as outcasts and jailed out of fear they could rouse the same fervour against the Soviet regime that they did against the Nazis. One feels there is almost a whole other movie that could have been made out of these few scenes which leave the fate of the main character hanging. Indeed, the contrast of the ending to the warm camaraderie of wartime is refreshingly un-Hollywood, but an integral part of telling the experience of these brave men.
So it's not an absolutely perfect concoction, with a rather trite romantic thread framing an altogether more interesting and relatively untold story of the Second World War. Stunning cinematography and a clutch of memorable performances should win you over however and bump this up to 4 stars. Don't be put off by the Czech language - indeed, much of the movie is in English anyway. This does not mean this is your typical Euro-picture smorgasboard, but rather it is a coherently presented vision superior in many ways to much larger budgeted wartime movies of the last couple of decades. The tangible reality of the Spitfires and the dewy morning `Scramble!'s are worth it alone.
Movie Review: First 20 minutes are in Czech, but the rest is split between English and Czech
Summary: 4 Stars
Near the beginning of this film, on Czech radio, we hear this announcement: "At six a.m. on March 15th the Armed forces of the German Reich will begin occupying our country." Upon this news a Czech airman reasons, "now we can go home and take off our uniforms." But before that sentiment registers with you, he inquires of his compatriot, "How long will it take you to pack?" And off they go, our Franta and Karel, headed to England. They are pilots and are supposed to be representitive of the hundreds of Czech pilots like them who "fought with the British against the Nazis;" flying RAF aircraft. That's what this film is about; something to give one the flavor of this Czech contribution to the Allied war effort. It's a Czech film and a darn good war film by any measure. Akin to the film "The Battle of Britain," but unlike that British made picture, "Dark Blue World" has a certain vibrancy that the former lacks. (You're best bet actually would be to watch both of these films in tandem.) Initially the Czech pilots don't fare too well, of course---trying to learn English, as well as how to fly Spitfires simultaniously. (Incidentially, the first 20 minutes of this film are all in Czech, but thereafter the pilots' native language and English are almost equally present in the balance of this film; the Czech's speaking in their own vernacular amongst themselves and English to all others. All in all, it's an effective compromise since in this manner you never forgot where these guys hail from, and thus the sad mistake the Brits & (more accurately) the French made which necessitated these Czech pilots leaving their own country to battle Hitler.) There's a romantic angle to this film as well, as young Karel falls for an older British woman making for a bit of an awkward love triangle (the details of which I won't go into for your---the prospective viewer's---benefit). Remember what this film is entitled. "Dark Blue World" doesn't just refer just to the skies; for the film addresses the personal side of war that is just plain painful, hurtful, sad, and unjust. Franta, for instance (played by Ondrej Vetchy who gives a stand-out performance), almost loses his best friend; the friend loses the woman who he loves. One officer loses a fiance to the circumstances of war, and all the Czech pilots who make it back to their homeland after the war (most of the film is told in flashbacks) were shortly thereafter imprisoned upon the Communists' seizure of power there; held thusly "until 1951 in labour camps" then treated as "outcasts for most of their lives." Not until 1991, the film informs us at the end, were such survivors "rehabilitated and recognized for their wartime service." "For they [the Communists] feared these heroes would once again fight for freedom." It's a story that needed telling and it's done with panache in "Dark Blue World." Do try to see it. Cheers!