The Winter War (1989)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A Major Disappointment

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

THE WINTER WAR – 1989 This is one of the best war films ever produced. This Finnish Film is about the Finnish-Soviet War of 1939-40.The Soviets are threatening war if Finland does not give up some of its territory. The Soviets are flexing their muscles and have gobbled up part of Poland and the three Baltic countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Finland, once part of the Russian Empire had chased the Red Army out in 1919 and declared independence. They are not inclined to let the Soviets back in. The Red Army, which vastly outnumbered Finland in men and material, attacked on November 30, 1939.The film follows a group of Finns from a rural area of the country. They have been called up to fill out the Finnish Army ranks. Finland had a well-trained reserve army at hand. Most men did several weeks of training every year. The men are sent to the frontier and assigned positions. Their orders are to hold the line.The Soviets shell the area and launch several massive human wave attacks. The Soviets had expected the Finns to fold and sue for peace. They get a most rude surprise as the Finns stop them cold. The Soviets suffer large losses but still keep coming. Soviet tactics suffer due to the lack of trained Red Army officers. The Great Purge of 1937, ordered by Stalin, had killed off most of the better men.The Finns stand fast for as long as they can, but the odds continue to grow. They finally have to ask for terms. However, the stubborn resistance by the Finns was quite the shock to Stalin and company. They settle for the small gain of 11% of Finland, and call it a day. Finland and the Soviets would clash again during the Continuation War of 1941-1944. Finland again would hold the Soviets to small gains and heavy losses.Period detail and weapons are very good here. The action is also top notch with no over the top heroics done Hollywood style. Just war as it is, bloody, messy and deadly. The viewer watches as the men are killed off one by one over the course of the four month conflict.The film is available in three different run-times. There is the chopped up 125 minutes version, the 195 min version and the complete 265 min version. The last two are the best. The 265 minute runtime version was padded out a bit to become a mini-series for Finnish television.

Honestly, I can't understand why Russia was unhappy with the release of this film. After all, there was only one unfriendly line about the Soviet Union in the whole film, namely the complaint about the use of explosive ammunition, deemed forbidden by a Finnish soldier and probably was that too, but I don't know the Geneva Convention that well.On the other hand... after a Finnish soldier decides to use a communist pamphlet for wiping purposes, he gets blown up as the appropriate form of punishment for that kind of sacrilege, I presume...And that's not the only politically cautionary measure here. The Soviet Union wanted only to secure Leningrad and if the Finnish would have been more reasonable and less mistrustful the bloodshed would have been avoided. That pretty much is the political take on the events back then and it is awfully close to a fairytale.That becomes clearest during the discussion of military support. First the soldiers express hope that Sweden might help, later there's talk of America. But for whatever weird reason the word "German" or "Germany" isn't uttered a single time in the whole film. Just for your information, Ribbentrop's own son was actually fighting in a Finnish unit during that time, as a personal guarantee that the Ribbentrop-Molotov-treaty wasn't meant that way. Plus the fact that Germany build its submarines in Finland already during the Weimar Republic, in secrecy, since the treaty of Versailles forbade it.Both sides are shown by far more innocent here than they were and that is an important misrepresentation for the message of the film to make sense.But o.k., enough of that. Considering the action, I must say that the film I alluded to in the title of this comment was a pretty strong source of inspiration too. It's not black and white and it's set in snow and pine and birch forests, but that sums up the differences pretty much.The strongest part of the film is actually the psychological presentation of its main characters and the spirit of the Finnish army. That is done skillfully, I have to admit. But that is about it. Honestly, the war scenes in "A very long engagement" were by far better, but the budget of that film was also bigger, granted.All in all I can't give more than 6 out of 10.

This movie was just down right bad. I love war movies and can normally come away from most movies and find something that I liked,but this was not one of them. This movie lacked substance and intensity.OK I get it, the Finns put up one hell of a fight and thats great, but the story is poorly told. You don't have any real connection with any of the characters and there's no real story line to follow. You just go from one random scene to another, nothing flows to form the story that is trying to be conveyed. If you want a war movie that will keep you riveted, and amazingly enough without battles scenes, then I would suggest "Downfall" (WWII German film). Or if you prefer a great story line and a lot of action then I would suggest "Brotherhood of War" (Korean war/Korean film). These two movies will not let you down as Winter War will.

This is an excellent film, brutally honest and tightly reality-bound depiction of the defense of Finland against a better equipped, many times larger, but (fortunately!) poorly led Soviet army, in a bone-chilling arctic winter. Like an image of what a hell frozen over would be like.Though I am a Finn, and understand the language, out of interest I watched the film with English subtitles. I was dismayed to discover how much was lost in the translation; the subtitles are more like short summaries of the gist of what is being said, without any of the flair and flavour.As such, the film is a bit spartan and bleak for Hollywood-saturated eyes, but so is war.In all, an excellent war film, depicting the horror of war more tangibly than any other that I've seen, save for "The Thin Red Line".