Rating: B
Dir: Karen Shakhnazarov
Star: Aleksey Vertkov, Vitaliy Kishchenko, Valeriy Grishko, Dmitriy Bykovskiy-Romashov
There are a lot of interesting ideas here, and for the majority of the time, the film does a great job of using them. Then, at the end, it seems to get bored and drift off. Rather than the film telling us what happened, you need to come up with your own explanation, never a satisfying experience. That it still merits a grade of B, tells you how well it does in the earlier going. The story unfolds on Eastern Front of World War II in 1943, when the Russians and Germans are fighting. After a fierce battle, a tank driver (Vertkov) is found barely alive, with burns over ninety percent of his body, and no memory of his identity.
Somehow, he survives, his burns mysteriously healing, and is given the name Ivan Naydenov (from the Russian word for “found”). He’s an odd sort, who believes in the “Tank God”, and that tanks will speak to those inside them, warning of danger – if only they listen. No denying his military talents though, which is why he is ordered on a special mission. There’s a mysterious Nazi Tiger I tank, which is striking fear into the Red Army. It keeps appearing out of nowhere, decimating the Soviet forces, and vanishing as suddenly as it arrived. Naydenov is given the task of hunting and killing it, and is given a specially enhanced T-34 for the mission, along with gunner Kryuk (Bakhov), and loader Berdyev.
Is this interest in historical conflict a sign I’m getting old? Will I be buying books about the American Civil War next? In my defense, this was the official Russian entry for the Oscars. But it would make a very nice double-bill with T-34. Absolutely no complaints about the production values here. The makers got any number of tanks, built some very large-scale sets, and showed zero reluctance to blow them up. The sequence where Naydenov and his team are tracking the White Tiger through an abandoned village, is as fine as you’ll see. The almost supernatural backdrop is great, with the Tiger feared by both sides. It’s not something often found in an otherwise grounded war movie, and is genuinely unnerving.
However, there’s a disappointing lack of resolution. I was expecting a further, climactic face-off between the T-34 and the Tiger I. Instead, the film just fast-forwards to the end of the war. Intelligence Major (Kishchenko) theorizes both the White Tiger and Naydenov are elemental creations of the conflict itself. With the war over, they no longer are needed… until the next time, anyway. So things just peter out, with the final scene of Hitler talking to a ghostly figure (maybe the god of war, but I’m just guessing there) about how conflict is mankind’s natural state. Uh… Sure. Not sure we should be listening to philosophical advice from one of the most evil men in history, but whatevs. Instead, this finishes one tank battle short of awesome.