Blockade

The Siege of Leningrad which endured a little short of 900 days and nights under the Nazi blockade during World War Two has long been of interest to me. I have viewed extensive footage over the years and was greatly looking forward to seeing this 'new approach with never-before seen archival footage'. This is how it was billed at the 2007 Sydney Film Festival. While it may be true that this actual camera footage may not have been shown before, the subject of the shots are not new. Nevertheless, the power of the film lies in its minimalist ambient approach. No Narrator telling you what the film-maker wants you to know. No dramatic music to overlay the images. One could say that the greatest technical contribution came from the Foley artists and their effective application of natural effects. Furthermore, the long lasting shots with very little editor's intrusion, capture the tedium of everyday survival. This is a true Socialist film in that it gives centre stage to the 'common people' going about their daily lives in degenerating circumstances. The great disappointment for me is its brief length of 52 minutes covering only four seasons, and not the ten seasons of the siege. Sadly, this worthy film, with its style exemplifying minimalism and UNsensationalism at its best, shot itself in the foot by not following through with the full magnitude of the event, and pulled its punches by excluding certain horrendous aspects committed by some of the starving citizens. The film-maker's 'distant' approach assumed the viewer's familiarity with the subject . Those of us who are familiar with the subject felt short-changed. Those not familiar were confused. But still worth seeing.

The Siege of Leningrad, also known in Russia as the Leningrad Blockade was undertaken as part of Operation Barbarossa by the Wehrmacht's Army Group North under the command of Field Marshal von Leeb. There were also Finnish forces and small contingents from other fascist countries like Spain. The siege lasted from September 1941 to January 1943. The objective was to fulfill Hitler's very explicit directive: to exterminate the entire population of Leningrad and raze the city to the ground. That failed, but nearly 1.5 million Soviet civilians and soldiers died, the former from bombing and shelling but mostly from starvation and sickness. Details can be found in Wikipedia and You Tube, or in books like The 900 Days by Harrison Salisbury.

In this extraordinary documentary, Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa tells (or doesn't tell) the story in the purest way imaginable. He assembles 50 minutes from footage taken during the siege. There is sound but no music, comments or titles. The initial shot is one of Leningrad under a cloudy sky, the Admiralty Tower in the center. It reminded me of Eisenstein, whose ideas on montage are present; the lifting of the siege is shown by two shots, one of an anchored warship firing at a distant target followed by another of civilians and soldiers looking up and smiling (maybe at friendly planes). We see the marching of German prisoners of war through hostile city streets and the increasingly horrible reality of wartime Leningrad; bombed out buildings, frozen corpses on the streets, mass graves, the struggle for survival. A long scene shows women young and old laboriously filling water buckets from a deep hole in the snow. The only title comes at the last scene, which shows the public execution of German soldiers and officers guilty of atrocities on January 5, 1946.

A sad footnote (not in the movie). Although von Leeb's actions during the siege (including close cooperation with the SS Einsatzgruppen) merited him the gallows with points to spare, he was tried by the US in West Germany in 1948, convicted of "crimes against humanity" and sentenced to time served, less than three years. Germany was now an ally against the USSR and Nazi crimes were being discreetly swept under the rug.

Most of Loznitsa's output to date consists of documentaries, but he has also directed feature films. Two of them, My Joy and In the Fog are available in the rental services and worth watching.