""Air" - Russian feature film" Topic

Trailer:
link

In the fall of 1941, on the initiative of Hero of the Soviet Union Marina Raskova, who had received support from Stalin, it was decided to form three volunteer women's air regiments – the 586th fighter (Yak-1 aircraft), the 587th bomber (Pe-2 aircraft) and the 588th night bomber (Po-2 aircraft). The 586th regiment belonged to the air defense forces.

In September 1942, at the insistence of Raskova, as well as the female pilots themselves, a group of the best pilots of the 586th regiment was sent to the front near Stalingrad, at the disposal of the 434th air regiment, where the girls showed themselves excellently in air battles. Unfortunately, many of them died. The most successful of them was Lidiya Litvyak, who shot down 10 enemy aircraft in air battles.
The film does not follow historical events exactly. The scene of action of the female pilots was moved to the area of besieged Leningrad, where they were entrusted with air protection of the "Road of Life" (an ice road laid into the besieged city along the ice of Lake Ladoga).

Looks interesting. I suppose we must remember a time when the Russians were not the 'bad guys'.

You know, both history and politics are complicated. All wars end someday and all countries end up being allies and enemies throughout history. For example, now the USA is friends… with communist Vietnam. Could you imagine such a thing during the Vietnam War? Everything flows and everything changes. You need to remember everything – both the good and the bad. Someone who was your friend yesterday may become your enemy tomorrow, and vice versa. That's life.

I love Russian films, but until it's on YouTube or something have no way to see it. Does look good.

I don't know if we call Vietnam our friends. There is a difference between trading with someone and being friends. Still those that remember the war.

If I recall correctly, the Po-2 "night witches" are an amazing story all by themselves. It is a fascinating moment in history.

Well, USSR was bad guy till Barbarossa (there was great cooperation between USSR and Third Reich even intelligence cooperation) and Stalin went very far and made a lot of concessions to Hitler to keep that status. It was Op Barbarossa which immediately turned USSR from bad guy to enemy of my enemy.

Seems good movie, though.

As above, I'll never see it unless it ends up on You Tube. If it ever does, I'll give it a look.

On the whole, I would consider Vietnam to be an ally or near ally. We have strong trade, and Vietnam is concerned about China, as is the US. I would very much like to go to Vietnam to see where my dad served. Geo politics change, especially over 50 some years.

Foreign films seem to get on YouTube faster than American films, not sure why.

Umpapa, the USSR was ready to come to the defense of its ally, Czechoslovakia, from Hitler, back in 1938. But the West surrendered this country to Hitler. After that, the USSR stopped counting on help from the West and began preparing for war alone. Moreover, it was preparing for a war on two fronts – Japan threatened it from the East. And if for this the USSR had the opportunity to delay the start of the war and push the borders further, it did so. This is not an alliance with Hitler – this is realpolitik.

"Night Witches" is a regiment of night bombers on U-2 (PO-2) aircraft. A clip based on newsreel footage where you can see the real "night witches" and their planes:

link

At a time when Russian airpower is raining destruction on Ukrainian cities, I'll give this a hard pass.

Could show up on Prime. Watched a pretty good TV series on a mixed Russian fighter unit on Prime

Alexander Nevsky is a pretty good film, with an outstanding score, but make no mistake, it was propaganda.
The current slew of Russian films about 'the Great Patriotic War' are equally propagandistic.