LENINGRAD (ATTACK ON LENINGRAD)

Russia, 2009, 110 minutes. Colour.
Gabriel Byrne, Mira Sorvino, Armin Mueller- Stahl, Olga Sutulova.
Directed by Aleksandr Buravsky.

Leningrad will be, for most audiences, something of a disappointment. While it takes on the siege of Leningrad from 1941 t0 1944, it is something of a jigsaw puzzle, various pieces of narration, spasmodically put together with a disjointed overall impact.

The film opens with a prologue (reminiscent of the attempt of Saving Private Ryan to create the atmosphere of D-Day) with a confrontation between Russians defending Leningrad and attacking Germans – coming out of the trenches and engaging in some hand-to-hand combat.

There are also scenes with Hitler and his agreement that the way to defeat Leningrad would be to starve the population. Armin Mueller- Stahl appears as one of his generals. There is also a character, one of this general’s nephews, who has something of a conscience, criticises the barbarity of the Third Reich in starving civilians and going to his death in a suicide dive in a flight over the city.

While the film shows the Russians and life in the city, the officials reducing the rate of flour available every day, the broadcasts warning people of the difficulties and dangers, the film also focuses on the international journalists in Russia at the time.

When the film goes to Moscow, the focus on the international journalists has them going to a war front, being attacked, with one of the journalists presumed dead but actually surviving. She is played by Mira Sorvino, the daughter of a White Russian general who had taken refuge in the UK, she becoming very British (to the extent of not speaking Russian). The film shows various people helping her to survive as well as her helping an ageing actress, the family of the designer for the theatre company, the genius son who is a chess champion as well as his sister. The film focuses also on the young militia woman who had been urging the troops on in the prologue, is called to duty, decides to shield Kate, and helps her to escape while Kate decides to stay with the family. Gabriel Byrne appears as a fellow journalist who is anxious about Kate, visits her parents in Eastbourne (a peculiar interruption to the Russian flow of the film) to tell them that their daughter is dead and introduce the theme of the White Russians.

There are also some communist officials who dither, who are exploitative for political purposes. In the meantime, there are many scenes of raids and explosions in the city.

While the film offers some interest to audiences who want to reflect on the siege of Leningrad and its holding out for almost nine hundred days with one and a half million people dying, this is only a glimpse rather than a well thought-out drama of the siege.

1. The impact of the film? For Russian audiences? For international audiences?

2. Audience knowledge of World War Two, the Soviet armies, the German invasions of Russia? The siege of Leningrad? Its duration for so long? The million and a half dead? The famine in the city?

3. The re-creation of the period, the battles, the trenches? The besieged city, the ruins, the bombings by the Germans? The scenes in Moscow – and affluence and comfort? The scenes in Berlin? The musical score?

4. The impact of the prologue, the urging on of the soldiers, the trenches, the commander unwilling to go over the trenches, the young woman urging him on, threatening him? The confrontation with the Germans? The credibility of the hand-to-hand combat?

5. Leningrad itself, the St Petersburg tradition? The glimpses of landmarks of the city? Audience sympathy for the people, the lines for flour, the information about rations, the coupons? The debilitating effect of starvation? The city holding out? The authorities and their strategies? Food coming in by road, by water, the onset of winter, the skiers going out to accompany the food coming into the city?

6. Hitler, his attitude towards the Russians, the siege of Leningrad, wanting the people to starve? The general and his attitude, the expert coming in to give an estimation of how long the population could last? The German pilots and their attitudes?

7. The Russian officials, in Moscow, in Leningrad? The concern about Kate – and the diplomatic intricacies of the relationship with Britain? Considering her a spy?

8. The international journalists in Moscow? Their lives? Reporting? The going to the battle front? The man taking the chocolate from the corpse, the raid? The bombings and death? The bus exploding? Kate and her survival? Presumptions that she was dead? Paul Parker and his grief, his friendship with Kate, helping her in her work? His visiting her parents in Eastbourne and getting the information about her background? His being informed at the end that she was still alive? Meeting her at the lake? Wanting her to come back to Moscow? Her decision not to?

9. Kate, the explanation of her background, in England, wanting to get back to Russia? The importance of her journalism? The importance of the typewriter and her writing a report of what was happening during the siege? The injuries, her being helped by the young woman? Taken to the city, in the house, the encounters with the young boy and the young girl? Helping them to survive, promising them survival? Their mother and her realism? The actress, the theatre? Her desperation? Kate taking the ring, bargaining for the canned food – and it making the boy sick? The day-by-day sufferings of the siege? Her wanting to get the children out, taking the girl? Success with the girl, her decision to go back rather than go to safety? The information about her death? The young woman’s death?

10. The young woman, strong character, as a militia woman? Going to the front? With the skis? With the authorities? The deception, the threats and blackmail about Kate? Her decision to help her, going to the front, Kate’s return? The scene of them dancing together? The lipstick? The final credits and the memory of their dancing together?

11. The epilogue, 1964, Paul in Russia, meeting the young man and the young woman? The memories? Seeing the memorial to the two dead women? The credits and their dancing?

12. An overall impression of German attitudes towards the Russians? The Russians and their defence of Russia and the final taking of Leningrad after three years? The focus on Russian authorities? Their preoccupations? The focus on the more personal stories dramatising the realities and emotions of the siege?