Dem Fools & Other Silly Rabbits

Ballad of a Soldier (USSR, directed by Grigori Chukhrai, 1959)

This sensitive WWII tale washes over the screen in artfully composed frames of poetic photography. The look of the film subtly replicates the baby-faced, gangly self-assurance of the good-boy hero. They both exude a freshness—anxious to prove themselves to be worthy of the high standards and expectations of their superiors (and their mothers).

Although it’s commonly classified as a war film (how could it not, with the title and all), the war serves only as background noise.

Our young protagonist (Alyosha) has defied all odds and, through a random miracle, crippled two German tanks that were coming for him—the last man standing on the battlefield. When the general back at camp goes to issue him a medal, Alyosha blurts out that he’d really prefer a day’s leave to go see his mother and repair her leaking roof. Knowing how Russian transportation is in chaos due to the war, the general generously grants him six days to go home and get back. And the journey of the movie begins.

Our Alyosha befriends anyone around him—taking time to assist them to their homes and sweethearts, delivering messages and presents to the loved ones of the strangers he meets, and falling in love with an equally fresh-faced and boldly innocent Shura.

He misses trains and catches the next one. He loses people and then finds them again. He stands up for right, he confronts wrong, all the while running later and later for home—drastically cutting short the time he’ll have to spend with his mother.

Ultimately, the core of the movie remains apolitical on the value of war, as far as the modern-day preference for debating which side has the moral authority is concerned. This film instead focuses on the value of this one man, so early on in his promising life.

Chukhrai, the director and co-screenwriter, doesn’t go for the cheap grandstanding and lecturing that we see in today’s American movies on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He’s painting a portrait of a person we’d all be proud to call son or husband or father or friend. He’s filling our hearts with love for this boy, not inciting petty political divisions and hatreds. He’s making us feel a sense of unity, that amid all the calamity and disorder and heartbreak, Alyosha represents our national spirit of “can-do.” He is who we aspire to be and aspire to raise.

Except for the sad fact that Alyosha is not American, and in the past eight years, the American film industry has thought it unnecessary—or even distasteful or worse—to provide us with positive portrayals of the American soldier, the youth of our current time.

This is the type of propaganda that Hollywood should be strivng to at least equal.

Pay no attention to the 9-part version that some comrade in the Communist Party USA/Russian Federated Labor uploaded to You Tube. It’s been dubbed into English, which also destroys the balance of the emotional musical score. Plus, the beauty of this film’s images deserves to be seen on as large a screen as possible. We highly recommend the well-preserved DVD edition produced by The Criterion Collection, which is available for purchase at Amazon or for rent through Netflix—or in the wee hours of Memorial Day 2009 on Turner Classic Movies.

For more information on the cast, crew and other tidbits (such as it was an Academy Award nominee for Best Original Screenplay), see the IMDB, Wikipedia, DVD Times and AllMovie entries.

Introducing…

“Films for the Obama Generation” Re-education Series

Cheryomushki (aka Cherry Town) [USSR, directed by Gerbert Rappoport, 1963]

Just like Obama, we don’t want to scare you away from all of his fantastic programs by getting into the dull, drab details. So to start our film series, which will prepare you for your future life in Obama Land, we’ll begin with something bright and cheery.

Just like us, those zany Soviets had their own little housing problems. This happy tale sings and dances about trying to finagle and backscratch your way through the local organizing committee’s red tape into a two-room flat (with a balcony and a garbage chute!)—and the convenient love matches made between flat-holders and homeless.

Everybody wants one (even if it takes having your roof cave in to get moved to the head of the line for a housing coupon). And they too have reason to Hope for a Change in housing; Cherry Towns are blossoming throughout the Soviet Republic. As one song says, every old town is having a new town built in it. In these centrally planned Soviet condo communities (named Cheryomushkis for the cherry trees planted amidst the concrete high-rises), “every inhabitant will have all his dreams come true.” Ah, sweet mystery of government-dependent life.

This screen adaptation of the musical comedy by world-famous composer Shostakovich even features a death-defying dance routine on a concrete slab dangling several stories above the condo construction site. [Pay no attention, comrades, to the poorly executed rear projection background as the lead actors nearly twirl off the slab.] You can relax and enjoy the thrill. You just know they can come to no harm, as the crane is being operated by the sexy, singing blonde comradette in a sensible headscarf, proof of her mechanical competence.

Although Shostakovich eventually won two Order of Lenin awards, he himself feared for his life in 1936 after Stalin walked out of his Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk opera (something about disliking that the tyrant in the story was poisoned to death) and was thereby declared an enemy of the people by Pravda for writing “formalist” music. Shostakovich wrote Cherry Town after Stalin’s death.

[Don’t worry, American artists. We know that Obama would never object to any type of criticism thrown his way. He has very thick skin and solidly supports freedom of expression and dissension.]

Guess what year this photo was taken.

(via Boston.com)

At the website, the photo caption reads:

Russian BTR-90 Infantry fighting vehicles roll down the street in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May 7, 2009, during a final rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade.

It appears that the rest of the world is not buying into this whole “lay down your arms, ‘cause everybody’s our buddy” philosophy the White House is trying to popularize.

Know what’s the best argument for why we don’t engage in our own displays of military awesomeness?

It’s not that we shouldn’t be crass or intimidating to the world (and thereby create more jihadists against us).

It’s that if we were to have tanks and missile launchers and such start rolling down our streets, the American people would run away screaming, fearful that the weaponry was aimed at them.

Sad, but true…as proven by an Air Force One flight over New York.

Are we right to be unconcerned about a huge country that, in the year 2009, still feels the need to drag out a collection of Topol-M missile launchers and other heavy-duty military hardware for a Victory Day parade?

Are we part of their intended audience?

(via Boston.com)

Prez Says We’re Heading For a Trainwreck

There’s something deeply unsettling in the psychology of Barack Obama. As he hurtles the US down the road to ruin, as he forces incomparably massive debt loads down our throats, as he belittles the million outraged tea partiers that took to the streets to protest his and Bush’s reckless, irresponsible fiscal shenanigans, he now realizes that this country is about to crash and burn. (Or is he just trying to cover his behind in future campaign ads and history books?)

So does he ask for the stimulus bill to be repealed? (It’s not too late. They’ve only spent 3%.) No.

Does he ask for the whole budget to be trashed and a new, drastically slashed one to be passed instead? No.

Does he tell GM and Chrysler they’re getting no more money, and all the banks should begin their TARP repayments immediately? No.

Apparently, no corrective action is necessary. This egomaniac just wants to lecture us that our debt load is not sustainable. It’s all our fault, not his.

A Bloomberg story, “Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable,’” goes into greater detail, saying:

President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

Earlier this week, the Obama administration revised its own budget estimates and raised the projected deficit for this year to a record $1.84 trillion, up 5 percent from the February estimate. The revision for the 2010 fiscal year estimated the deficit at $1.26 trillion, up 7.4 percent from the February figure. The White House Office of Management and Budget also projected next year’s budget will end up at $3.59 trillion, compared with the $3.55 trillion it estimated previously.

Two weeks ago, the president proposed $17 billion in budget cuts, with plans to eliminate or reduce 121 federal programs. Republicans ridiculed the amount, saying that it represented one-half of 1 percent of the entire budget. They noted that Obama is seeking an $81 billion increase in other spending.

Now back to the government spending spree—and forcing the credit cards to permit us to carry our own personal unsustainable debt loads. It’s the new, hip, Obama-mama way.