by Joseph Davis, Contributing Writer
One thing I have always strived to do when I pick a film to watch for Out of Market, is to find something that will make one think, to put a situation into perspective that someone might not consider or know about. One that I come back to, mostly due to my own fascination over the events, is the Second World War, especially on the Eastern Front. It’s an area that isn’t talked about as much as I think it should be in U.S. history books, as two ideologies that have long been averse to what has been stood for here in the States went toe to toe with one another. However, with todays film, 1944, a 2015 Estonian film, we get into why I want to learn more about this front, as most stories from it can be seen as discussing people who were either caught in the middle of, or fighting for, a cause where the conflict will end with a side that will decide your future for you, and not one where your future was truly in your hands.
The most intriguing aspect of this movie is the fact we have two effective main characters. The first one we meet is Karl Tammik (Kaspar Velberg), serving in the German army as an Estonian conscript, and whom we learn that during the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states has no love for them. Conversely, we have Jüri Jõgi (Kristjan Üksküla) in the red army, whose story becomes intrinsically tied to that of Karl’s. This decision, and the scriptwriting that leads to the discussion between the various characters, is a magnifying glass through time to the reality of the day. I won’t go into detail, as the point of this is not a history lesson, but it makes it ever clearer that the characters on both sides of this story are fighting for their countries future, but in a way for someone else to decide what that future will be. It’s a situation that, as a viewer, I couldn’t even begin to truly understand, let alone know how I’d be able to respond in the situations presented, where the choices made are ones that are truly a lose-lose.
One thing that I appreciate in movies depicting war is when they decide to show humanity through the hell that is surrounding them. In this department, 1944 does well in many ways. In some moments, we see humanity shine through the fog of war, when Karl comforts a girl as she’s taken to safety while he remains to an almost certain fate, while in others we see the uncertainty, as people flee en mass from the advancing red army, and the uncertainty of the future. In many other ways, we can see it in the defiance both Karl and Jüri have on their respective sides to the conflict. Finally, we see it as each struggles to try and tell someone they care about, one as family and the other after growing a fondness for them, a truth that does nothing but shatter her world. It reminds us that in war, it’s not always the soldiers who are in the line of fire, but civilians, which is made all the worse by knowing that so much as disagreeing with your superiors can be deadly.
Overall, looking back at the Second World War, the destruction of Nazi Germany was the most important objective to Europe. The atrocities they committed were appalling, and the only outcome that the world could have survived was an allied victory. However, that feels very black and white in many ways, a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” in many regards. For many, especially on the eastern front of the war, things could never be so black and white, as the war cast thousands of shades of gray across the land. The history there is conflicting, wounds potentially still open and festering into the modern world as these countries, now independent once again, move into a future as their own nations. 1944, if anything, should serve as a reminder to those watching it here in the States that our experiences cannot be cast upon others, because so rarely will everyone be able to see the same event and feel the same results.
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