movie world

The Georgian director Mikhail Chiaureli's The Fall of Berlin is perhaps the most important of the films that promoted Stalin’s “cult of personality.” Made in two parts by Mosfilm Studio and presented to Stalin as a 70th birthday gift, the film lasts over 150 minutes. It begins in the countryside near Moscow in June 1941 and ends with a highly fanciful victory parade attended by Stalin in Berlin in May 1945. The linking thread is the interrupted love affair between Natasha (Marina Kovaleva), the village schoolteacher, and Alesha (Boris Andreev), the Stakhanovite steelworker and recipient of the Order of Lenin for his achievements. She is captured by the German invaders and schlepped off to a concentration camp; he, shell-shocked during the invasion, recovers when he hears of her fate, and fights his way westward in the Red Army to liberate Europe.

Stalin himself worked on the screenplay for this blockbuster epic, fine-tuning its portrayal of the dictator as father-hero to his people. No expense was spared in production: 5 artillery and infantry divisions, 4 tank battalions, 193 planes, and 45 German trophy Panzers, as well as 1.5 million liters of fuel, were used in staging its panoramic battle scenes. The film's remarkable recreations of the battle for Berlin, climaxing in the bitter struggle over the Reichstag, impressed even the film's Western critics with their gritty realism and sheer spectacle. Equally memorable is the film's depiction of Hitler and his inner circle, whose folly and intrigues play out on sets that recreate the grandiosity of the Fuehrer's Chancellory and the claustrophobia of his bunker with surrealistic intensity.

Director: Mikheil Chiaureli
Cast: Mikheil Gelovani, Boris Andreyev, Vladimir Savelev, Marina Kovalyova, Nikolay Bogolyubov, Jan Werich
Country: Soviet Union
Genre: Drama, War

DVD9 | NTSC 4:3 | 02:29:03 | 7.47 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English

Extras:
-- Slide show with audio commentary
-- Film restoration examples

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 02:31:15 | 4.08 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English (hardcoded)