Well, the movie is basically about the last days of a specific Russian regiment stationed in Afghansitan, before the main troop withdrawal in 1985. The movie accurately portrays the grim realities of Russian army that have made it infamous: "dedovshina" (officers and NCOs physically harassing, beating and humiliating younger recruits), mixed character of war (you can trade with your enemy one day and kill him the next), life of women at the front lines, documentary footages of helicopter assaults, and coffins being soldered and sent home in heave C-130 Hercules class Russian cargo planes with tracer to jam Stinger missiles, fatigue, boredom, anti-war sentiment, emotional side simply put. The there's some action scenes, but they are poorly done, and often are illogical, like Major Bandura's suicidal walk and turning of his back to 10-year-old kid armed with AK-47 who's father he just killed. Also the fact that in the middle of firefight in the mountains heavy grenade launcher pops out of nowhere (and any half-bright person knows that it's virtually impossible to hump 40-50 lns launcher on the march anyone). But at the same time films shows that war is a dirty affair, where murder is sometimes condoned, wanton destruction of whole villages for little or no reason is normal, indiscriminate killing of civilians is overlooked as collateral damage inevitable during war... Some food for thought as to why Afghan war as lost.. Not the best war movie made, but profound and intelligent enough to be worth watching.
8 Reviews
Great movie, bad lightning.
Adam_Alqaisi31 January 2022
I love American movies but when it comes about war movies Russians are the best to portray them. They show you the real side of war that you don't see in American movies like corruption, destroying villages and killing civilians.
Thanks for everyone who did that movie.
Hollywood needs to learn how to make like this movie.
Thanks for everyone who did that movie.
Hollywood needs to learn how to make like this movie.
Very realistic war
cmdrdan20019 September 2009
American war movie fans might be bored out of their skulls by this movie, but that boredom is born of ignorance. Guerrilla suppression operations are always like that. Sit around and wait, get some hookers, get drunk at the base, wheel and deal with the businessman, kick a prisoner around, cover up the killing of the street merchant by the green private. Then, boom, there goes two fuel trucks, and for 10 minutes a small-arms battle with one high-caliber machine gun. Then wait for brass to plan a way to knock out their stronghold, and then end up killing a few civilians in the process of doing it. If reality doesn't work for Western viewers, there's always Top Gun or Rambo (Top Gun realistic? nope)
The best part of Afganskiy Izlom's realism was the way all the planes dropped flares like confetti. They had to do that because Carter and Reagan gave the Mujahedin so many missiles. Also, the wave of Mi-24's was excellent, a better helo attack even than Apocalypse now. The sight of their missiles dropping and shooting was a scene of impending "death from above" for whoever they were aimed at.
It's funny how the Soviets were able to make an honest Afghanistan movie within a year after their departure, but it took the US six years. Afganskiy Izlom is just as real if you apply it to NATO's occupation too. Someone will always pick up the gun and shoot you cause they care more about the land. It's a movie Westerners should watch. Unfortunately I don't think anyone has ever made English subtitles; I might have to make some.
The best part of Afganskiy Izlom's realism was the way all the planes dropped flares like confetti. They had to do that because Carter and Reagan gave the Mujahedin so many missiles. Also, the wave of Mi-24's was excellent, a better helo attack even than Apocalypse now. The sight of their missiles dropping and shooting was a scene of impending "death from above" for whoever they were aimed at.
It's funny how the Soviets were able to make an honest Afghanistan movie within a year after their departure, but it took the US six years. Afganskiy Izlom is just as real if you apply it to NATO's occupation too. Someone will always pick up the gun and shoot you cause they care more about the land. It's a movie Westerners should watch. Unfortunately I don't think anyone has ever made English subtitles; I might have to make some.
Russian neo-realism or a prayer for people killed in the war
shusei12 October 2006
Warning: Spoilers
From the first to the last scene, this film is made very realistically,even too realistically that sometimes we can't see details in night scenes(it's dark as real night),in the desert(sunshine is so strong as in real desert).
Script and actor's play are also very realistic. Shots and episodes are edited not to show things and events "effectively", to "explain" them, or,as many Hollywood films do, to "entertain" viewers. Editing here is to represent the events as if they really happened in Afganistan. Camera is set sometimes far from dying solders, even the moment when the main character Major Bandura is shot and killed.
Such method reminds me of masterpieces of Italian neo-realism. And the construction of the story here is based on the same principles as "Paisà",or "The Bicycle Thief"--chronological series of "true to life" episodes and a few pathetic moments, which at first seem to be sudden and illogical, but have inner reasons.
I think the inner reason of Major Bandura's suicidal death is religious emotion--Repentance for innocent people's death(not only his accidental killing of family in the village, but also death of solders under his command).He is not depicted as a eager believer,on the contrary he is depicted as tactful and responsible officer.Exactly for this reason his last decisions(to go back to the destroyed village and to turn his back to an armed boy, whose family he killed)seem an act of Repentance.
The Russian Orthodox choral, which sounds at the end("Evening Sacrifice")is another context,by which all the film can be seen from this point of view.
Script and actor's play are also very realistic. Shots and episodes are edited not to show things and events "effectively", to "explain" them, or,as many Hollywood films do, to "entertain" viewers. Editing here is to represent the events as if they really happened in Afganistan. Camera is set sometimes far from dying solders, even the moment when the main character Major Bandura is shot and killed.
Such method reminds me of masterpieces of Italian neo-realism. And the construction of the story here is based on the same principles as "Paisà",or "The Bicycle Thief"--chronological series of "true to life" episodes and a few pathetic moments, which at first seem to be sudden and illogical, but have inner reasons.
I think the inner reason of Major Bandura's suicidal death is religious emotion--Repentance for innocent people's death(not only his accidental killing of family in the village, but also death of solders under his command).He is not depicted as a eager believer,on the contrary he is depicted as tactful and responsible officer.Exactly for this reason his last decisions(to go back to the destroyed village and to turn his back to an armed boy, whose family he killed)seem an act of Repentance.
The Russian Orthodox choral, which sounds at the end("Evening Sacrifice")is another context,by which all the film can be seen from this point of view.
The best so far picture of Soviet- Afghan war
marokand20 August 2007
I would recommend this as the most successful attempt so far to make a movie on Soviet Afghan war. And it is very honest and responsible picture starting from small details of uniforms and weapons up to human relations, war routine and Central Asian landscapes. It's been shot in Tajikistan just after the the troop withdrawal which happened in 1989 not in 1985. The Italian star Mr. Placido was just perfect in the role of Major Bandura. Other characters looked also very natural especially always drunk club managing officer:-).The scenario seems a bit jammed in the end but it might be an impact of the Civil war in Tajikistan which had started right during the shooting of the film. All movie team had to escape sometimes even under fire. The last scene is purely "harakiri" type of behavior and reminded me the final phrase from one famous samurai movie - "We've won all battles but lost the war". It could be also a metaphor of USSR collapse - the great country allowing to shoot itself to the back by the small offended child.
Sincere and appropriate
victorboston25 October 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Filmed less than a year after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the subject matter was fresh in the minds of the cast, the director and the audience. Most of the cast are actual soldiers and officers just back from the war. The Soviet army cooperated quite a bit during filming, which is odd.
The Afghan intervention was a bloody and pointless war in which even the generals had forgotten the reasons for the bloodshed. This film shows the tension and the cruelty of military life, the emotional atrophy experienced by the troops and the pain that convulsed a small nation torn by war and civil-war.
There is no lack of powerful scenes. One of the first is footage of steel coffins being loaded onto a transport bound for the USSR. Solders go about their work while an officer calmly ticks off the destinations: Moscow, Rostov, Donetsk, The Baltic.
An earlier comment describes the last scene with Maj. Bandura as illogical. It is perfectly logical and in the spirit of the film: the only human relationship Bandura maintained was with the Afghan family which he accidentally kills in the assault. Having lost his only buffer against the senselessness of the war, Bandura turns his back on the boy(and his gun) in resignation to his fate.
I particularly liked the last scene: a flock of MI-28s rising over the mountains as the voice of a pilot yells: "Uhodim! Uhodim rebyata! (We're leaving! Boys, we're leaving!) in a tone of sincere relief.
Afhanskii Izlom is an excellent film - brutally honest and as unholliwood as they come.
The Afghan intervention was a bloody and pointless war in which even the generals had forgotten the reasons for the bloodshed. This film shows the tension and the cruelty of military life, the emotional atrophy experienced by the troops and the pain that convulsed a small nation torn by war and civil-war.
There is no lack of powerful scenes. One of the first is footage of steel coffins being loaded onto a transport bound for the USSR. Solders go about their work while an officer calmly ticks off the destinations: Moscow, Rostov, Donetsk, The Baltic.
An earlier comment describes the last scene with Maj. Bandura as illogical. It is perfectly logical and in the spirit of the film: the only human relationship Bandura maintained was with the Afghan family which he accidentally kills in the assault. Having lost his only buffer against the senselessness of the war, Bandura turns his back on the boy(and his gun) in resignation to his fate.
I particularly liked the last scene: a flock of MI-28s rising over the mountains as the voice of a pilot yells: "Uhodim! Uhodim rebyata! (We're leaving! Boys, we're leaving!) in a tone of sincere relief.
Afhanskii Izlom is an excellent film - brutally honest and as unholliwood as they come.
At last the ultimate film about Russian war in Afghanistan
searchanddestroy-11 November 2014
Warning: Spoilers
I waited for such a film for a long time now. This movie, I did not know it, and I don't remember how I finally found it. But that's the best movie about the Russian war in Afghanistan, and from the soviet point of view please. Of, course no one can forget BEAST OF WAR, back in 1988, but it was an American feature, even speaking of Russian soldiers in their tank. And get away from the 9th Company film crap, made in 2005, a sort of Rambo like garbage movie, that also spoke of this war. I wouldn't have never bet that Russians, and in 1991 - not so long after the war - could give us such a jewel, so realistic, an anti war film. For me, a genuine war film is always a film AGAINST war, and certainly not a film showing heroism. But that's here my own opinion. Such a shame that this gem was not released in USA or France. I watched it without french or even English subs. But that did not disturb me.
A terrific war film, and I repeat, the best ever about this war. Far far from clichés.
A terrific war film, and I repeat, the best ever about this war. Far far from clichés.
Glum, poorly made Russian/Italian war film
lor_21 June 2023
My review was written in May 1991 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.
The Soviet withdrawal after nine years of war in Afghanistan is given a wacky pastiche treatment in "Afghan Breakdown". Downbeat pic has its darkly comic moments caused by dubbing virtually the entire picture into Italian.
Available in both tv mini-series and feature versions, pic shot in Turkistan and Leningrad, avoids the pretentiousness of such parallel world films as "The Beast", in which all-American actors played Russians and Afghanis. Instead, Michele Placido is almost the only Italian in sight, but the Ruso co-stars speak and even gesture in Italian.
He stoically walks through this role as a major sent by a cruel colonel on various missions to protect the Russian flank during the pullout. An air of gloom and defeat is sustained by helmer Vladimire Bortko. The Soviet involvement (never referred to explicitly as an invasion) is criticized heavily.
War horrors are treated here as a given rather than peculiar to the Afghan conflict. The career soldier's point-of-view and the problems of a dogface are both presented.
Several corny subplots, seemingly truncated in the feature version, fail to arouse much interest. Placido is carrying on with blonde nurse Tatiana Doghhileva, who is constantly being hit on by the sex-starved colonel. Several visually impressive battle scenes punctuate the talkfest. Glum finale is a downer, as intended.
The Soviet withdrawal after nine years of war in Afghanistan is given a wacky pastiche treatment in "Afghan Breakdown". Downbeat pic has its darkly comic moments caused by dubbing virtually the entire picture into Italian.
Available in both tv mini-series and feature versions, pic shot in Turkistan and Leningrad, avoids the pretentiousness of such parallel world films as "The Beast", in which all-American actors played Russians and Afghanis. Instead, Michele Placido is almost the only Italian in sight, but the Ruso co-stars speak and even gesture in Italian.
He stoically walks through this role as a major sent by a cruel colonel on various missions to protect the Russian flank during the pullout. An air of gloom and defeat is sustained by helmer Vladimire Bortko. The Soviet involvement (never referred to explicitly as an invasion) is criticized heavily.
War horrors are treated here as a given rather than peculiar to the Afghan conflict. The career soldier's point-of-view and the problems of a dogface are both presented.
Several corny subplots, seemingly truncated in the feature version, fail to arouse much interest. Placido is carrying on with blonde nurse Tatiana Doghhileva, who is constantly being hit on by the sex-starved colonel. Several visually impressive battle scenes punctuate the talkfest. Glum finale is a downer, as intended.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
