Never heard of this film before but was blown away by it. One of the best war movies I've ever seen and I'm a WWII history buff. The battle scenes look very realistic and the uniforms, weapons, tactics and tanks were historically accurate. The acting was outstanding and captured all the extreme and conflicting and confusing emotions of the characters caught in the middle of a brutal and deadly war. The film also showed the unfortunate situation that Estonia has had with its big bad neighbor, Russia for many centuries. The filmmakers were also very brave in the 21st Century to actually show that the Soviet communists were even more evil than the German Nazis. When Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in 1941 most Estonians viewed the Germans as liberators and many of its young men volunteered to fight against the evil Commies. However, as Germany started to lose many battles to the larger and more powerful Soviet Army, these liberated Estonians had to now face the onslaught of Soviet rage and revenge. Unfortunately millions of people in Poland, Hungary, Czech, Slovakia, Germany etc. Were also victims of this overwhelming barbaric attack as their countries were forcibly conquered and a Soviet totalitarian political system was put in place to enslave them from 1945 to the early 1990s. Thank God that the Soviet Union is no more and finally the citizens of Estonia and other Eastern European countries are free and independent and can tell the truth of how they were oppressed and murdered for almost 50 years.
