Panfilov's 28 Men

November 1941, outside Moscow. Soldiers of a division are setting up a defensive line. German armour is approaching and what they have is anti tank rifles, a few guns and grenades. The film starts with the preparation: digging trenches, choosing positions, placing the guns and waiting. Then the fighting comes and continues through almost the whole film. Kim Druzhinin directs with Andrey Shalopa. The source is a newspaper report written in the Soviet period. According to it, twenty eight soldiers of a division stopped fifty tanks and all of them died. The story entered the school books and was passed on for generations as an account of heroism. An official investigation in 1948 established that the report was fabricated: the numbers were wrong, some of the named soldiers were alive, and the events had not happened as written. The report was kept closed for many years, was later published, and the argument has continued to the present. The film was made in the middle of that argument and chose to tell the legend; its financing began with crowdfunding and state support followed. The historical objections were rejected by the production. There is no character development; the soldiers are not distinguished and the film rests almost entirely on the technique of the fight. The detail of weapons and positions is high; how the anti tank rifles are used is shown closely. Who it is for: viewers who follow war films and combat driven productions. Who it is not for: there is no narrative, the characters do not separate, and the film disregards the historical argument.