Well Deserved Praise

Dreadfully Boring

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

If you came to this film expecting a high quality Russian film, you'll be severely disappointed. If you've come here expecting a good Russian film, you'll be disappointed too. This is not even on the level of Day Watch, Night Watch or anything one would even consider "okay."If people expressed their disappointment with Burnt by the Sun 2, then this film is even worse than that.It looks like a TV production, and guess what? It actually is. Digital, overlit, overacted, comical. It is propaganda quality, not cinematic, but more of a TV public service announcement. It feels more like a history channel documentary re- enactment scene than anything even remotely cinematic.I've seen historical re-enactments on Youtube and shorts on Vimeo that look more professional.There are terribly awkward moments where someone attempts to speak German and the Germans say "What is he doing?" "He thinks he's speaking German." The delivery was flat and there was nothing funny about it. Oh, and whenever Germans speak, it is dubbed, so even if the actors give it their best, the whole conversation is dubbed flat by one person. Yes, 4 Nazis speaking but one Russian voice speaking in the flattest voice possible translating their speech. (You can hear both voices, and the background noise and the music).Also it attempts random humor such as the Nazi officer passing the bread to his subordinate who is not sure what to do with it. It's really weak.I won't get into the politics of it, but I will confirm that the Ukrainian welcoming committee left a loaf of bread in the toilet and thought it was still presentable to guests and that the collaborators spoke Ukrainian.

This movie is an excellent example of how the Russian film industry, financed by the Russian Ministry of Culture, uses culture to brainwash the Russian people and create hatred towards Russia's neighbors. "The Match" is about a supposed soccer game between a local team in Kyiv, Ukraine and a group of Nazi officers during the World War II German occupation of Kyiv. The Soviet Ukrainian side is warned by the Nazis that they should lose the game or be shot, but the heroic Soviet Ukrainians decide to beat the Nazi team and are subsequently murdered. There really was a soccer game between a Kyiv team and Nazi officers but no one was shot after the game. The entire episode was a lie created by Soviet propaganda after the war. That's all and fine certainly. After all, there are many films which do not exactly follow true historical facts. The problem with "The Match" is that it completely twists the truth and lies about various other historical events with a goal of creating hatreds towards Ukrainians. For example, in the movie, anyone who speaks Ukrainian is portrayed as a Nazi collaborator whereas Russian speakers are heroic Soviet patriots. The film even goes so far as to show Ukrainians as being "subhuman", an example of which is the scene where the young women dressed in Ukrainian traditional costumes greet the commanding Nazi officer with bread and salt. However, the prior scene shows the women taking the loaf of bread from a filthy and grotesque toilet where they had forgotten it. Fascist propaganda scenes like this, are obviously made to portray the Ukrainians as being dirty "subhumans" and together with the fact that Ukrainian speakers in the movie are all Nazi collaborators is meant to create hatred towards Ukrainians, their culture and language. This is especially offensive to Ukrainians who lost more than 8 million people in the most horrific ways possible during WWII at the hands of the Nazis. What is interesting is that "The Match" is not the only Russian movie that portrays Ukrainians as fascists, Nazis or subhumans. It becomes rather obvious, especially now, after the Russian invasion and war against Ukraine, that the Russian government was preparing its citizens for such a war against Ukraine. The anti-Ukrainian lies and Russian fascist propaganda spread in this movie are the same sorts of lies that the Russian government is now using against Ukraine and its people to justify its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and its support of the terrorist "republics" in the Donbas. The creation of this movie truly is a hate crime and it should be dealt with as such.

"The Match" is the latest Russian heroic drama based on the historical events of the Great Patriotic War in summer of 1942. The action takes place in Kiev, Ukraine, occupied by the German fascists. The premiere is shown in the Russian cinema on the eve of the Victory Day. The film depicts the story of "The Death Match", a real story about the football match between the Soviet and German teams. The game was played in the occupied Kiev in 1942. The main character, Nicolay Ranevich, is the goalkeeper of Kiev team "Dynamo" and the combined team of the Soviet Union. He falls in love with the teacher of German, Anna, who is his opponent's wife. Anna leaves her husband, the forward of the football team "Locomotive", for Ranevich in the hope of happy life with her beloved. But the German invasion into Kiev ruins their plans. The film-makers don't leave out the theme of love, applying to deeper emotions and feelings. And it makes the film more catching and exciting. The love story is successfully interspersed with the whole gist of the film. Directed by Andrey Malyukov, the film captures the common people's fight against the fascists' cruelty and aggression, the winners' spirit. It conveys the patriotic and heroic drama of the people who have to survive in the occupied Kiev, the tragic and merciless Babi Yar, the Ukrainian collaboration, the underground struggle against the German occupation. It has a quality cast, with Sergey Bezrukov, as the hero and the stunningly beautiful Elizavetta Boyarskaya as his beloved. Ekaterina Klimova gives a spellbinding performance as the doctor in the mental asylum. The cast is well-selected and the actors' play is touching and keeps the viewers in suspense. To sum up, "The Match" is worth seeing. The film-makers give us a great opportunity to look at the historical events as if from within and get the feel of them in a full context of time. The events and the images of the characters are significant and influential. The theme of the Jews is touched upon very delicately, carefully, conveying the tragedy of people. No doubt, the film is very suggestive, gives food for thought and doesn't leave you indifferent.