Attack On Leningrad (2009)

      I just watched this movie (called "Ленинград" - or Leningrad - in Russian.) I didn't know that it was a Russian-made movie especially considering that the main character is played by Mira Sorvino. Had I known that it was was mostly in Russian I would have tried to get that version or at least the one with English subtitles. Instead the version I saw was the poorly dubbed one. It felt more like watching a bad Japanese movie dubbed in English from the 1970s.

      The movie itself (minus the poor dubbing) was pretty good. It is based on a true story of a British newspaper woman who gets stuck in Leningrad during the German blockade of the city during World War 2. She befriends a policewoman and several other people including a brother and sister. It gives a good taste of what life in the besieged city must have been like. There was a scene where the policewoman shoots at a professor sent to fight the Germans outside the city with no gun. He tries to retreat and she won't let him - per Stalin's orders. Another showed how people became so weak from lack of food that they couldn't even leave their beds. Some even turned to eating horses and other people to survive. Eventually, the Soviets build a "Road of Life" (Дорога жизни) across the frozen river where they can bring people out and supplies in  - under German attack.

     The film shows how the people (both natives and foreigners) survived not only constant attacks from the Germans, but also from their own Soviet military and police force and how despite the hardships, shortages and death all around them people managed to survive - physically and mentally.

    The Siege of Leningrad (блокада Ленинграда) lasted 872 days and while it is not the longest siege in modern warfare (the Siege of Sarajevo from April 1992-February 1996 is) it is still a major crime and victory of World War 2 and the 20th Century.