Film: The Battle Of Neretva
Release date: 7th June 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 158 mins
Director: Veljko Bulajic
Starring: Yul Brynner, Orson Welles, Hardy Kruger
Genre: War/Drama
Studio: Arrow
Format: DVD
Country: Yugoslavia
Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1969, and personally approved by Yugoslav President Tito, Veljko Bulajic’s Battle Of Neretva is a story of the battles between the Germans and the partisan resistance in Western Bosnia around the valley of the River Neretva, a name that has become since a synonym for resistance and freedom.
In January 1943, the streets of towns and villages in the Republic of Yugoslavia are crowded with people, cheering Tito and hailing the anti-fascist resistance. Meanwhile , the Germans, who fear an invasion of the Balkans by the Allies, plan to attack the enemy with all their force, to smash once and for all the partisans under the Deutsch boots and secure the region under the Swastika flag.
The partisan army, together with thousands of wounded people, and refugees who were forced to leave their homes, have to head through the city of Prozor towards the River Neretva, seeking a safe haven on the other side. Only one bridge is still standing, but the enemy had foreseen the resistance’s move and is waiting on the other side with cannons, tanks and artillery. The ‘Weiss plan’, put into practice by the Italy-Germany alliance, aims at pushing the resistance towards the river, and finally attacking it with the battalions ready on the other shore.
Tito orders the bridge to be blown up to startle the Germans, and when the battle reaches its peak, and everything seems almost lost, the strategic knowledge of a group of brave men would completely turn the situation, if at a terrible cost…
The Battle Of Neretva is an important historic account of stage of WWII that took place on both sides of the Neretva, a landmark of great strategic importance in the former – and still united – Yugoslavia, for both armies. The narration, carefully built and put on screen, is crammed full of details to help the audience to understand what it was like to be a soldier in those years, during the worst war the world had ever seen. The conflict goes through the terrible Yugoslav winter, with cold, snow and rain making it hard for the platoons to fight, and even to move from place to place.
The abysmal difference of the two fighting factions is well-portrayed and tells a lot about the story of WWII: on one side, a powerful army composed of highly-trained soldiers armed with the latest developments in warfare technology. On the other side, the Yugoslav partisan resistance - brave and courageous men, but also a population starved to death, who is under-equipped, largely untrained and carrying wounded and refugees. Here the camera technique, jumping from the Germans to the partisans and back to the Germans again, creates a perfect parallelism, which underlines even more the difference between the two factions, and the heroism of those who died to defend their homes and their families, without leaving anyone behind.
As this is a war with thousands of men and women, the narration follows different characters throughout the film, and gives the spectator different points of view, ideas and personalities. Generals and high commanders are shown first, followed by the leaders of the partisan squads, down to the infantrymen, the refugees and the civilians. This ‘presentation’ of characters is vital to pass on the message that a war touches everybody, from top to bottom of the social ladder. As German General Lohring states to his officers at the very beginning: “This is a war against men, women and children.” This concept is important not only on an idealistic level, but is portrayed in several scenes – for example, when the partisan Nikola, affected by typhus, watches the girl he loved being carried away, lifeless, and believes she is still alive. Scenes like this one, which are outside the main storyline, are arguably of most importance because they show people who should not have been there fighting and dying, but are nonetheless touched by the horrors of the situation.
The script is very realistic, especially when it comes to the small talk between the comrades: simple words spoken by simple men, who are trying to maintain a link, however feeble, with the normal life they had before the war. Sentences such as “I am married,” “My spouse is at home,” “I have a child, 4 years-old” are common and highlight that these fighters are just normal people, who are seeing their lives put in jeopardy by the war, and try to cope with all the danger they have to bear.
We can see the importance of the language used by the characters in another scene of the film. When General Morelli is taken as a prisoner and put to carry the wounded, he demands to be shot – a honourable way of dying, according to the military etiquette. The partisans are not soldiers, though, and send him to help at the hospital, showing again another human side that is typical of, not an army, but a population.
The Battle Of Neretva is a good piece of cinema which would not leave today’s audience disappointed, as it did not when it came out forty years ago. With Bulajic’s brilliant direction and script, this war film is still as current as other masterpieces of the genre that were made many years after. DG
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