"Kursanty" (Cadets) - a Russian mini-series - Victor Khomenko

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"Kursanty" (Cadets) - a Russian mini-series

With the subject of WWII still alive and fresh in Russian memory, there is no surprise at the number of war movies produced since 1945... and more are coming seemingly every day.
To some extend the war movies are like baseball films to the Americans - each one is bound to generate interest, no matter how many before it.
While there have been a few great ones, most of the recent production has been below par, mostly following the familiar chiche's and with no deep revelations. You could safely say they were produced for Russian daily consumption only.
The 2004 mini series "Cadets" is perhaps the first such work I feel safe recommending to an inquisitive Western viewer. To put it briefly - it is simply quite good.
It is 1943 and Saratov Artillery Academy is getting its fresh class of recruits. 120 young boys, taken from their homes, collective farms, factories. They will be given 92 days to learn "enough" about war and survival skills to become army leutenants, and be thrown into the bottomless war meat grinder. As the story goes, the whole previous class of another 120 innocent souls was killed during the first botched up action. So welcome to the school... boys...
The film will trace the personal stories of several of them during those 90 days till their graduation. No war actions there, but extremely strong sense of its presence... strong and even gut-wrenching.
The problem one usually sees in such movies is the two-dimensionalty of its characters. Not this film... here we have quite a few characters that show true depth that makes our encounters with them memorable... in fact haunting. Played by very good actors, they become real, but not overdrawn.
It would be pointless to try to recite all those personal stories, sufficient would be to say that many of them are quite dramatic, but as the film tells us, those little dramas were nothing unusual, therefore representative and poignant in the extreme.
In every movie of this nature you would have the obligatory conflict between an honest and battle-hardened officer with his NKVD counterpart. Given the well known nature of such conflict most movie makers do not spend much time with any subtleties, do not provide any freshness to it. The Cadets does very good job in that area too, with the conflict raised to the level of intensity not commonly encountered.
The film is set to the quiet, matter-of-factly narration of one of the participants, and it will be that quiet somber voice that will become the termination point of many lives... and each thusly presented brief life and needless death will combine to produce a strong effect, not commonly found in war films.
The film consists of ten full-one-hour episodes, and I can guarantee you will leave wanting for more... in fact my wife is thinking of seeing it for the second time soon. I took a brief look at the English subtitles and they seemed to be adequate.
Awailable from Netflix. With each DVD containing 3 or 4 episode there is not much monetary excuse not to rent it.

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Topic - "Kursanty" (Cadets) - a Russian mini-series - Victor Khomenko 07:15:21 01/28/06 (0)

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