Tag Archives: Movie Trailer

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My Favourite Air Combat/Aviation Movies

I generally enjoy air combat movies. Like sniper and bomb squat movies. They are among my guilty pleasure war movies. Can´t help it. That is why there are some air combat movies in my little list that  experts would never allow in theirs. But as I just said, I can´t help it and I also like an occasional bit of pure entertainment. Here are my six favourites:

6. The Blue Max (1966): WWI. Centered on a German fighter pilot who strives for the Blue Max, the highest possible decoration for a German fighter pilot. As he is not an aristocrat like the “normal” fighter pilots he is not accepted by his comrades. (see review)

5. Memphis Belle (1990): WWII. Yes, yes, it is a bit corny and glorifying. So what? I enjoyed it. Story of a tight-knit group of pilots. Friendship, camaraderie and courage.

4. Battle of Britain (1969): WWII. A hymn to British heroism. The use of original languages makes it very authentic. Great and realistic aviation scenes. (Here is my review)

3. The Red Baron (2008): WWI. The story of the Red Baron. German movie. Gorgeous cinematography. Maybe he is shown as too much of a hero. I think we see how he becomes aware of how different the battle in the trenches is from the one high up in the air.

2. The Dam Busters (1955): WWII. I love this one. So exciting. The true story of British pilots on a secret mission to attack German dams. The first part is dedicated to the inventor of the bombs.

1. Dark Blue World aka Tmavomodry svet(2001) : WWII. I consider this to be  the most beautiful air combat movie. It´s a Czech movie and should be much more known. Great story. Czech pilots fly for the RAF. Wonderful pictures. Really moving from the idyllic beginning to the tragic end.

I have seen many more but find them a tad too corny to be included here ( Top Gun, Flight of the Intruder, Pearl Harbor, Flyboys…to name but a few) and there are a lot I have not seen yet.

Which are your favourites? And which are the ones you think I have to watch absolutely?

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Warlords (2007): So much better than expected

Warlords is a great movie. Far, far better than I expected. Not the usual at all. A wonderful example of Chinese cinema.

Gorgeous opulent pictures, a heartbreaking, thoughtful story, epic battle scenes, amazing landscapes, a very special atmosphere, poetical in tone, complex relationships and an excellent cast. Jet Li surprised me completely. I would never have expected him to be capable of such nuanced acting. Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro are superb as well and so is Jinglei Xu as Lian.

Set in 19th century China during the Taiping rebellion Warlords follows the destiny of General Pang (Jet Li). He is the only survivor of his unit ( thanks to a shameful act). All the others have been massacred. He finds refuge in the mountains among bandits and convinces their chief and his brother to follow him and become soldiers. The three men  who feel a very close bond early on take an oath to live and die for one another.

We soon follow them from battlefield to battlefield. Pang seems to have the highest moral standards that he manages to keep up even though they are constantly at war. But the longer the war lasts, the more it gets difficult for him to live up to these standards. Finally, in order to do a greater good, as he says,  he is willing to commit what one of the brothers sees as a crime. What started as a close friendship turns into the opposite developing a destructive dynamic. The core message of this film seems to be: War is ultimately ugly and nothing good can come out of it.

Warlords is really a story of Shakespearian proportions. It did also remind me of Greek tragedies. Only much darker. And still it is a compellingly beautiful movie.

Large scale cinema at its very best. I will definitely watch it again.

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The Poet aka Hearts of War (2007) or Don’t Let the Movie’s Poster Trick You

The Poet is a flawed and a much despised movie. Set in Poland in 1939 the central theme is the love story between  a German officer and a Jewish girl. I read comments and reviews that would make me feel ashamed if I had been part of this production. Funny enough people either give it a 1 or 2 star rating or 5 stars. Odd, right? Are they really being fair? What infuriates them so much? That Roy Scheider has only a mini-role even though he is on the movie poster?  I was not enthused but I did not mind watching it. Sure there is  a lack of logic and actors who speak in heavy accents that are not their own is annoying. Still, it is nicely filmed and I found it shows  one of the most beautiful depictions of a mother/son relationship. That the mother on top of that is played by the  beautiful Daryl Hannah does help as well. These two people are really close. They have a very open relationship. Unlike the one they both have with the father, a German general and Nazi. Unlike her husband mother and son are totally opposed to the German politics of the time. The movie has furthermore  some tragic story elements, decent fighting scenes and a female Russian Resistance leader one would not want to mess with.

At the opening we see Oscar, the son, on his mission in Poland. He should infiltrate resistance groups. On a trip to the woods he finds an unconscious girl in the snow and rescues her. What Oscar finds out very soon is the core element for the melodrama that will follow namely the fact that Rachel is  Jewish.

They fall in love at the greatest speed I have ever seen people fall in love in a movie, even though Rachel is already engaged.

They are separated early on, as Rachel has to flee.

If you want to find out whether they will meet again and if so, under what circumstances, you might have to watch it.

Did I mention that Nina Dobrev stars as Rachel? That might actually lead to a more generous viewing of this movie as fans of the Vampire Diaries might want to check out what else the young actress has done before. She is actually quite good in The Poet.

Maybe it is all about the poster. People seem to have felt tricked into buying a movie with Daryl Hannah and Roy Scheider as the main protagonists when in truth they have only minor roles. We resent feeling tricked.

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The Army of Shadows aka L´armée des ombres (1969): The Classic Movie on French Resistance

Bad memories, I welcome you nevertheless,  you are my distant youth.

If you are really interested in the topic of French Resistance there is no escaping this movie.  If you are truly interested in film there is no escaping this movie either. Especially not since there has been a recent wave of Resistance movies (Les femmes de l´ombre (Female Agents), L´armée du Crime ( The Army of Crime), Flame and Citron, Black Book, Winter in Wartime, Max Manus) and it is always good to see where they come from, what influences they had.

Jean-Pierre Melvilles´s L´armée des ombres aka The Army of Shadows (or in the Shadows) is a classic and a work of art.

It is beautiful like a foggy autumn evening, like the solitary cawing of a crow, like bare branches of a tree in winter, like the bluish colour of an early nightfall, like bitter sweet music and coffee drunk at midnight in an empty bar. (Would I  have to compare it to a contemporary movie, I think I would choose Shutter Island.  The movie as a whole and particularly the sad song during the end credits, Dinah Washington´s Bitter Earth blended with Max Richter´s On the Nature of Daylight, has a similar dense atmospheric quality.)

Gerbier (Lino Ventura) is captured by the Gestapo early in the movie. He manages to escape but knows he has been betrayed. Only one of his own could have told the Gestapo where this overly careful man was hiding.

Gerbier is head of a Resistance cell that operates between Paris, London, Lyon and Marseille. They always on the look out for people they can trust. They must always be careful, they could be betrayed anytime. They are hunted and on the run continuously. When they are caught by the Germans or the collaborators, they will be tortured mercilessly as the film shows drastically. But the group will risk everything to save one of their own.

The cell kills traitors as well  as people who become too risky. No matter how much they helped them in the past, no matter how much they like them. The group ultimately lives and dies for the cause.

Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret are fabulous in this movie. It is a pleasure to watch such assured actors.

A feeling of abandonment and utter loneliness pervades the whole film. It seems to illustrate the existentialist angst of the times. Melancholy in its purest form.

What impressed me most was the sound. No effects like we know them nowadays but so artfully and sparingly used noises and sounds and just a little bit of music. The rain in the beginning, echoing footsteps in empty streets, the ticking of a pendulum in a room, the distant cry of birds.

It is quite a sad movie and I would not recommend you watch it should you feel very blue. It would not cheer you up. But on days when you feel balanced enough you will admire these brave people and suffer with them when they find out one of them is being tortured but won´t speak, not even when he knows he is going to die.

And, please remember, this is a true story.