just watch it!

Just perfect...

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

My wife and I saw this at the Toronto Film Festival debut, as a walk-in, knowing nothing about it.The film deserves wider viewer-ship in North America, for the many reasons given by other reviewers.The only novel comment I can make is that this is a propaganda film, in the very best sense. 'Propaganda' usually brings to mind more or less crude attempts from totalitarian regimes to manipulate (or ignore) facts in the service of a political agenda. We can (if we wish) admire 'Triumph of the Will' as a masterpiece of effective propaganda: do your feet begin to tap when they sing the Anthem of Nazi Youth? We can also admire 'Guadalcanal Diary' as wartime propaganda that presents the Marine Corps in an ideal light, while for reasons of wartime security the lost Battle of Savo Island is ignored.'Names in Marble' like the Polish 'Katyn' is in contrast an effort to present historical truth effectively to a new generation that may have forgotten it, if indeed they ever knew it. One of the lingering effects of the 'former Soviet Union' is the re-writing of central and eastern European popular history, to turn nationalist patriots into enemies of the state. (One of the most popular Polish TV series of the 60s presents a Polish tank unit fighting alongside their Soviet brothers, an utter non-event but very useful to the regime).See the movie.

To rate this movie fairly, you have to know near non-existing Estonian cinematography and how underfunded it is.This particular movie, built up to pure shock value, accomplishes its mission extremely well. There's no clear story, time-line or explanation to most of things - and that's what the Civil war was - big confusion, fear and terror. The actors, young as they are, play very well, they act just like they're supposed to act - pure, childish and confused. I think that older, professional actors wouldn't portray those characters that well.Don't expect anything Western here, it's a movie about particular thing and stays in its frames. All Nüganen's attempts to incorporate something Hollywoodish fail miserably here and that's probably only bad thing about this movie - the fact that he sometimes tried.For an Estonian or maybe even Scandinavian, it's a must-see. For others, clear your mind and open yourself to something different, or you'll be disappointed.

This movie is interesting to watch. I haven't seen an Estonian movie before and i was impressed with the people, surroundings, history and language(I haven't heard Estonian before, but it sounds almost like Finnish to me).The environments are astounding, and the actors are OK, the movie really tries to give a picture in which neither the Soviets nor the Germans should continue to dominate Estonia. Thats why the main actors fight against the Soviet invasion.Since we get to follow some students and a landowner, we are a little limited to only a few peoples view of the Soviet/independence dilemma, which is understandable, however, it would have been interesting to see these events through the eyes of a poor person.There are a couple of remarks i would like to make. I don't like that the Estonians that took part on the soviet side (the reds) are in this movie evildoers that kill people on the streets and rape innocent women. Since i have not read independent Estonian history this might be the whole truth, but this movie should at least have given a explanation to "why?" they (all) are so evil to get a better "vote" from me.I'm not that fond of love stories in war movies, and this movie contains a love story that not should have been there. It's just silly, it gave me nothing i haven't seen 1000 times before.The fighting and excitement of battle is totally OK, but there is an element of exaggeration, that lowers credibility, but its still high quality.To sum up, it's a well made war movie, better than most, but Estonian film makers still have to do better to actually give us something we haven't seen in the cinema's yet. 7/10 mostly because of Estonian environment.

Estonians see this film in a little different light than the other people. As a Finn I think Estonians should be proud of this film even if it's not necessarily even a great movie in pure artistic sense. I watched this film with sentiment and that's why I rate it so high. Estonian history concerns us Finns too and we're sorry that you suffered from Russian rule for so long time. We Finns are also happy that you managed to fend off the Red Army in 1918, for their next target would definitely been Finland. The Red Danger was over only in 1920 with the Tarto Treaty, which meant the end of enmities with the Soviet Union. That treaty was signed by both Finns and Estonians and one Finnish General has said that it was only that contract that ended the Finnish Civil War too. He meant that the Estonian war for Freedom was a part of Finnish war for Freedom as well.I consider 'Nimed Marmortahvlil' as a very interesting movie and I don't think many Finns will disagree with me. The film has been broadcast in Finland twice and I have it on DVD, because it has a special value for me. I confess I might like it less if Peter Franzén had not played in the film. I also admit that the action scenes are not very great: there are over-acting and over-dramatizing but using that ancient light machine-gun in the final battle is interesting. The informal nature of the Estonian army is also notable as they all were just young volunteers without any military training. The action also happens in a minor scale, there is no real epic, and the event frame is somewhat odd to me. I don't figure out what the clock is symbolizing and what are those Latvians doing in Estonia except fighting, of course. Well, I guess the clock symbolizes the battle for Freedom in some sense and the Latvians are fighting for the Communism and not for Latvia. Despite these 'grand mysteries' I find this film very special.