August. Eighth (2012)

Answering to bjoleniacz-1.Wikipedia is written by people. English Wiki is corrected by pro-American propaganda thugs. Everybody knows that Georgia shelled peaceful city and killed many civillians. And then we stopped them and made them run away screeming.Russians never start wars, but we know how to stop them. And we do this very well. Get off!

I am not here to judge or criticize, nobody paying me for that. I am here just to say that this movie is about a real life. This movie captures in itself more than I could ever expect from a Russian movie. Its about war, its about care, its about love. Nothing is perfect in this world including this movie. The script could be better, the cast could be better, the story could be better, the actor performance could be better, BUT. One...... big...... BUT! The inner fight in a heart of the soldier between responsibilities, duties and care for girl he doesn't know ; the sacrifice of one girl facing the demon of war in name of life ; the love in the eyes of the soldier; This cannon be any better! Please watch it!

. . . to appreciate the difference between a central European modern-day war movie that is balanced and NOT designed to Demonize one side compared to AUGUST EIGHTH, where every incident EXCEPT one token gesture at the end appears coldly calculated to make one half of a conflict non-human (think the Orcs in the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, or the aliens in the ALIEN series of sci-fi flicks). AUGUST EIGHTH concerns the trouble with Ossetia, which used to be in the U.S.S.R. After reading the 28-page, single-spaced Wikipedia article on this 2008 "war," it's clear the roots can be traced back to Adam and Eve. The scenery where some of this conflict occurred is beautiful, and the CGI is more realistic and amazing then what you would get from a FAST & FURIOUS or DIE HARD feature. The endangered son Tyoma's obsession with robots, which he conflates with his dad, also comes to the screen without Hollywood overkill, but with lots of pizazz. Tyoma's heroic super mom Kseniya (played by Svetlana Ivanova, along the lines of a much younger and more athletic Julia Roberts) is one of the most memorable characters of the year, as is her main savior among the Russian troops, "reconaissance" man Lyokha. However, there's plenty enough heroes here for the Russian side without frequent cuts to a Putin-like "President" character risking America's wrath in the Kremlin war room by deciding to go "all in" and attack an area vacated by 1,000 U.S. military war game allies hours earlier. Nor is it necessary to put EVERY ONE of hundreds of anti-Russian fighters in black face masks to lessen their equal standing as human beings. As Tyoma's "Cosmoboy" would say to his robot protectors, "Aza Nisi Mazamaravati Chandrika!"

The plot tells a story of young Muscovite Ksenia who sends her son to Caucasus to be with his father, her Ossetian ex-husband. Suddenly the war breaks out in the region, and Ksenia has to fly down there to rescue her child. Fayziev said that his heroine isn't suited for anything but mundane household dramas. Yet she has to go through the war experience and can't let herself get tired, refuse or complain, because she doesn't have a choice.The girl is annoying in the beginning, a bad mom in a miniskirt who cares only about her boyfriend. Then the character develops, she grows to be a decent mother who even understands how to cope with a breakdown of her son, who starts to hide from war in a world of imaginary robots. The film reminded me of Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" because of the kid's way to protect himself from terror. The film has quite a crew: talented young actors, screenwriter Michael Lerner, who worked for 20 years as a war correspondent for Newsweek, Oscar-nominated film editor Dennis Virkler, Oscar-awarded sound producer Bob Bimmer ("Speed" and "Gladiator") and talented computer graphics coordinator Sergei Nevshupov ("Lord of The Rings" and "Avatar"). Animation consultant on the set was Alexander Dorogov, who's known for his work with Walt Disney Feature Animation. Fayziev said he initially planned foreign professionals on key production roles, "so that they showed us how to do decent movies correctly and to speed up the process."We are used here to prefer Hollywood movies to local, because the latter are less visual. Well, this one pulls the image pretty well and might be the first made on such a level in Russia.