It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Second World War became the one and only unifying idea of the modern Russian society. Virtually everyone agrees that this war was a defensive and a fair one.
The Russian government lacking in it's own unifying ideas leans heavily ( i would say somewhat too heavily) on this background and tries to unite the Russian society based on the heroic war which ended 75 years ago.
Therefore there is a multitude of new movies about the War and that period, mostly these are well funded by the state and yet they are sadly lacking in anything original.
Now, the Red Ghost (Krasnyy Prozrak) is very different. It is a relatively small in scale movie, with a very fresh perspective.
It hails an unknown soldier, who fights for his home country without any hope for recognition. Without any hope for anything really other than killing as many enemies as possible.
It is an "eastern" and in many ways it is quite similar to 'westerns": there is silent lone hero, there is a clearly defined main antagonist and there is a final stand down between the two.
Even the music, while being original is quite vividly reminiscent of Ennio Morricone's immortal melodies.
Perhaps this is not a movie, which you would would want to see repeatedly, and it is not perfectly made. Most of the characters remain just illustrations of the archetypes they symbolize, such as, for example an old village hunter, a dying ranking officer, a talkative joker of a soldier and so on. We do not really get to know any of them.
But this may not necessarily be something of a shortcome - the nature of an eastern (and western) is always like that - ultimately the fight matters more than the characters.
In certain scenes the camera work may have been better. And yet the fight scenes are filmed really well, one does feel the tension of the fight happening on the screen.
The movie certainly manages to deliver it's message and it does so elegantly. There is an uplifting feeling after watching the film.
Highly recommended.
