Do svidaniya, malchiki! (1966) User Reviews

One of the saddest and best movies ever

[mellern · 10/10 · 28 November 2000]

This movie, while dealing with subjects which are not understood by many, is definitely one of the best ones that I have seen. The plot centers around a group of 3 boys (2 Russian, one Jew) living in a small town on the sea-coast in Russia at the start of WWII. At first, we see the everyday lives of these boys during a lazy summer vacation. They swim, go to the beach, spend time with their girls and have fun. However, with the undercurrent of war approaching, they are drawn into a horrible web of lies that was only too common in Russia and Germany during the war. The boys, commissioned as the 3 best Komsomol members (a type of youth-organization in Communist countries), are offered a much sought-after position in a military academy for 3 years. While they are being offered this, any Russian (or anyone having lived in East Eur.) knows that behind this 'offer' is the cold truth that they have no right to refuse, or be condemned as not nationalist enough and an enemy of the state. The small, quiet town is not yet involved in the war, and the boys have no idea what they are up against (or of anything that is going on in Europe at the time). Their parents start refusing, because they know all too well what this 'academy' will lead to. However, the enthusiastic young men (they go through a series of hilarious sequences where they try to prove their manliness , ie shaving, smoking pitiful rolled-up cigarettes and having a first taste of wine) are optimistic and eager to go off to learn. The only problem, especially with the main character, Volodya, is that he will miss his girlfriend (and presumably his mother). To make things short, they go off to the 'academy' - and what is implied but never stated - are immediately sent off to the front. Young, naive 17 year old boys with no experience are sent to fight in a war they did not know existed or started. In what is a very interesting technique, we are given glimpses of a different world - Nazi rallies, bombed cities, a continent already in the throes of war - throughout the film, and only towards the end do we figure out why this is so. This is their fate, and no matter how sad, devastating this is - it is the truth. I know that many boys were sent off with their fathers to fight in the war - did they know what they were up against? Yet this movie, with its beautiful photography, minimal dialogue, with a setting in a town cut off from everything - paints such a sad picture of this truth that I guarantee it will make you think for a long time. Volodya is the only one who survives this war (as he tells us); his two best friends die, he never sees his mother or girlfriend again. They most probably died saving their country. The IMDb plot summary for this movie is a bit inaccurate, since it is hard for a non-Russian (who hasn't lived through what went on) to understand the movie's real message - it is not a coming of age story at all, it is the story of a fated generation growing up amongst communism. Please, anyone, if you have the chance to see this masterpiece, do it. If you see beyond the obvious on screen and pay attention to the IMPLIED events, I guarantee you will leave the movie theatre in tears, in tears about the truth.

Does the movie deviate from the book so much??

[paultov_49 · 8 July 2004]

The book provides the following details: 1. It was 1940, since soon after they left for the military academy the Russian-Finnish war started. The comments incorrectly implied that the boys were misled as to being sent to the academy and instead sent to the front. Not quite true, per book. Let's not forget that even in the chaos and terror of this time in Soviet Russia there was a certain pathological, but logic. 2. Only one of the friends was killed during the WWII-Viktor. The other became a doctor and was killed during Stalin's 1949-1952 wave of anti-Jewish terror. So called 'Delo Vrachey'. 3. The 'small' town in the book was actually Odessa which is neither small nor indistinct from both economic and cultural standpoint. PT

I saw this movie many years ago and would like to watch it again

[vik-8 · 10/10 · 25 November 2004]

I saw this movie many years ago and would like to watch it again. It was shot during Khruschev 'ottepel'(thaw) - a short period of 'renaissance' of the Soviet cinema in 1960s, it made a very good impression at the time. There are a number of good movies produced then: 'Ballad of a Soldier', 'The Cranes Are Flying', 'I'm Twenty', 'The Wild Dog Dingo', 'Gamlet' – just to name a few. According to the book, the events took place in 1936: the main characters study upcoming "Stalin Constitution" at school. (It was adopted in 1937). The town described in the book is not Odessa, but most likely Evpatoria - the place where B.Balter settled before WW2: the book states that they "ALSO" have "PERESYP" ("like Odessa"). Wondering where I could get this movie either on DVD or VHS.