Fortress of War (4 Stars)

This film is intended as a tribute to the Russians who died fighting a hopeless battle for the Fortress of Brest rather than surrender to the Germans in June 1941. It is told through the eyes of a 15-year-old boy, Sasha Akimov, one of the few survivors of the assault. The film is told with documentary precision. The matters of human interest, such as families and love affairs, are kept to a minimum. The emphasis is on the ugliness of the war. Within four days, from June 22nd to June 26th, almost all the Russians in the fortress were killed. A large number of women and children surrendered, but they were executed a year later. The Germans were too heavily burdened by the war to keep prisoners indefinitely.

The fortress has since become a war memorial as a symbol of the German invasion of Russia. Unfortunately this status is based on a falsification of the truth. The film gives the impression that Brest was on the Russian frontier. This is not true. Brest was a Polish town that Russia had occupied since 1939. In 1939 both Germany and Russia invaded Poland. The difference is that after the war Germany gave up its Polish territory, whereas Russia kept it. The official version of history as rewritten by Russia is that Brest was already part of Russia in 1941.

Still, it's a good film. Click here to view the trailer.