Customer Reviews

Dark Blue World (Amor Bajo Fuego) [NTSC/REGION 1 & 4 DVD. Import-Latin America]

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm quickly realizing that there are some unbelievably good foreign films out there (I own about a half-dozen now). My wife and I watched Dark Blue World on DVD this weekend. It is one of the best epic war movies that I've ever seen and a very fine DVD release. The cinematography was amazing and the Dolby Digital mix was stunning. I felt as if there really were Spitfires and BF-109s flying through my living room!

In case you haven't heard of it, Dark Blue World is about Czech fighter pilots who fought for the RAF during World War II. In addition to an amazing history lesson, it was one of the best war screenplays I've ever seen and was wonderfully acted and directed. This is the first movie in a long, long time that I really felt connected to the characters. It makes me want to see more from this director and these actors. Jan Sverák should have been nominated for Best Director. Ondrej Vetchý (as Frantisek Sláma), Krystof Hádek (as Karel Vojtisek), and Tara Fitzgerald (as Susan) were all outstanding. It is rare that you see a movie so well balanced with stellar performances. Even the dog was perfectly cast (you'll know what I mean when the tears are rolling down your face as the main character has to leave her behind)!

Most of the movie is in Czech with English subtitles, which is refreshing. Hearing everything in the correct language sure does make the experience so much more fulfilling. It has the best aerial combat scenes in any film, ever. You'd think that you were seeing very high-quality historical film of the real thing. I'm a pilot and, as such, I'm extremely demanding in this area for accuracy down to the last detail. Let me tell you that the production staff for Dark Blue World didn't miss any detail. The combat sequences will take your breath away and really leave you with an appreciation for the sacrifices made by these pilots.

Even though I just saw it a couple of days ago, I'm gonna watch it again really soon. You won't be disappointed!!! I think that this film is the sleeper hit of 2001. It has my unqualified recommendation.

This is a must-see film for everyone. Jan Sverak (Academy Award winner for "Kolya") again shows his skills and excellence - no wonder he is called "smaller budget Spielberg". But don't be mistaken, this is byfar the most expensive movie project done in this country EVER.

Dark Blue World is a movie about Czechoslovak fighter pilots in World War 2, who escaped to Britain to continue their fight against Hitler, after German army has occupied their country. It is a story of war, friendship, love, and the cruelty of fortune, wonderfully entwined to produce a fantastic film. The film is a great drama, yet contains a lot of Sverak's humanity and humor at the same time...

Among other things Dark Blue World is arguably the best World War 2 aviation movie I've seen - the aircraft are beautiful, historical background well-researched, and most of all air combat scenes are thrilling but very realistic (modern computer graphics possibilities finally allow these things to be done, and this movie avoided all of the "comic book" effects that todays' directors often get dragged into - see Pearl Harobr). What is really good though is that you can take your girlfriend or wife with you, and she will enjoy herself as well!

Finally few important things to mention:

For all its seeming similarity to Pearl Harbor, this is a much, much better movie.
Considering that roughly one third of dialogues in this movie are in English, it isn't really a typical "strange foreign subtitled movie", either...
And finally DVD features many excellent extras, including an excellent "The Filming Of" documentary, storyboards, edited scenes, documentary about special effects, and others - lots of goodies.
Be it whether you liked Pearl Harbor or were disappointed by it, this is a film you should see.

Do get this DVD, you won't regret it... or even better, go see it in a movie theatre before you buy it, while you can!

If you read lukewarm reviews of this film, ignore them; they were just blowback from Pearl Harbor. Apparently (I've not seen Pearl Harbor), there are some surface similarities between the two movies--the WWII setting; two friends who are a fliers; a shared love interest--and I suppose that scenario could be considered cliched, but it seems as if critics, who uniformly hated Pearl Harbor, were unwilling to judge Dark Blue World on its own merits. Their reviews are mostly petulant complaints about having to sit through a Czech version of the prior Hollywood flop.

The fascinating story here, based on historical events, involves a veteran Czech pilot, Franta (Ondrej Vetchy), and a fresh-scrubbed young farm boy, Karel (Krystof Hádek). >As this too simple description suggests, there's ample ammunition here for critics who wanted to dismiss the film as cliched. But what it's not possible to convey here is how affecting the film is, especially the great love portrayed, which as in all war movies is not the physical love between Franta and Susan but the comradely love of Franta and Karel, who share so much, but ultimately too much. And the point is that their relationship works and it draws us in. They are very likable--the one eager and innocent; the other more experienced and reserved. They're something of an odd match but we can see what they provide to one another, especially in such trying times. We care about them. We ache when they hurt each other. We want them to patch things up. We feel ennobled by the sacrifices they make for one another. We can fathom how beautiful yet painful Franta's memories must be to him and why they would remain so close to the surface of his mind. Indeed, Ondrej Vetchy is especially good as Franta, with his soulful, mournful eyes and the rare gravity he brings to the character. By the end of the film he's experienced so much loss--to the Nazis, to the Communists, of his friends, of lovers--but there's still a calm dignity that compels our attention and earns our respect.

We're a couple years on now and maybe folks have forgotten about Pearl Harbor. Heck, I don't think anyone saw it but the critics anyway. So pick up Dark Blue World and watch it for itself, not in order to compare it to some other film. It is a lovely movie.

GRADE : A

How do movies as impeccable as this miss the radar of critics and pop studios? Are people so averse to subtitles?

Some reviewers (very unfairly) compare this movie to the insipid Pearl Harbour because of a love triangle plot, but that is about all I can think of in terms of parallels. Yes, broadly speaking, this masterpiece pivots around a close relationship that develops between a flying instructor Slama and his junior protegee Karel during the 1940s -- mentor and mentee -- a bond that even a shared love interest fails to break. This could have easily gone down the trodden path, ending up in a hackneyed mushy lovestory with bereaved hearts and skipped beats. Not under Sverak's aegis.

For one thing, unlike Pearl Harbour, the love angle is integral to the movie and tightly intertwined with the narrative. A la "The English Patient". The woman in question happens to be married (with a husband who's MIA) and this makes it just that bit more interesting. The cinematography is breathtaking, including some of the best fighter-jet combat sequences you'll see on screen with vintage aircraft (there should have been more of these!) and some in-prison ruthlessness that may leave you squeamish. British accents are occasionally suspect (reminder: Czech movie) but easily glossed over. The splendid soundtrack itself begs a special mention -- if you have seen Kolya, the music is comparably moving.

But what makes this marvel of a movie immemorable is its non-Hollywood ending. Without giving away too much, it is a stirring close that confirms that the basic tenets of humanism run deep even amidst the throes of war. Nothing melodramatic, but deeply moving.

If you care about a well told story that screams 'Masterpiece', this is required viewing.

As other reviewers have commented, if you found the movie "Pearl Harbor" trite, simplistic, inane and sentimentally shmaltzy, check this film out. See a different take on WWII flyers with the central story a love triangle with two pilots in love with the same woman, only this one made with some adult sensibility.

The story of Czech pilots who fled their Nazi occupied country to fly for the RAF in England, the technical aspects of the film are done with care, and the flying sequences accurate and rendered with excellent special effects. Portrayed with a deliberate absence of "heroics", these courageous men are shown to be normal men doing extraordinarily brave things with a workmanlike and professional attitude. They master their fear and fly and die with understated dignity and strength. Watching them felt like witnessing the real deal. Men die by accident and just plain bad luck; and, their friends have little time to grieve, but must suit-up and go up against the enemy again.

The love story develops accidentally and with the logical "illogic" that is love. It is told simply without histrionics, yet the feelings, though muted, are real and powerful.

Told in flashback from the horror and ultimate injustice of these heroes having been imprisoned by the Communists on their return to Czechoslavakia after the war, the film ultimately is about friendship and comradeship that survives all the tests that human relationships can be put through. It is an excellent film, but it's low key tone and telling dictates that it misses that final emotional tug that would have made it a classic. 4-1/2 stars. A worthy entry.

Dark Blue World is an excellent film. Unlike most offerings in the war film genre it is historically accurate, all the way down to the loss of rank experienced by the Czechs and other members of the Free Forces upon their arrival in the United Kingdom. Both Ondrej Vetchy and Krystoff Hadek turn in brilliant performances, as does Tara Fitzgerald and the other supporting members of the cast.
The film explores an issue that has rarely come to light in the West, the service of men from Occupied Europe in the Armed Forces of the Governments-in-Exile and the brutal treatment, by the Commmunists, of servicemen who fought under British Command during the Second World War.
This, combined with the wonderful cinematography - the dog-fight scenes will make you hold your breath - and the existence of an actual plot, make it a film well worth seeing.

Courage, friendship, wartime heroism...all the finest qualities of mankind are contrasted with the cruelty of the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Czechoslovakia in this WWII story of Czech fighter pilots who escaped the Nazi invasion to serve in England, and it is told in flashback from an airman who returns to his homeland, and is jailed and tortured by the Soviets, who took over and finished the job of crushing the Czech people when the Nazis were defeated.

The aerial photography is superb, and anyone interested in early fighter planes will love this film; cinematographer Vladimir Smutny is also masterful in the interior shots, with their ambiance of the late '30s-early '40s, and in capturing the picturesque English countryside. There is a gentleness to the story despite the violence of the war, and director Jan Sverak manages to touch every emotion during the course of this 112 minute film. It is brilliantly directed as well as acted, and the two male leads, Ondrej Vetchy (Franta) and Krystof Hadek (Karel), make their parts into living beings, and we laugh and cry with them.

Others of note are Tara Fitzgerald (Susan), Charles Dance (Commander Bentley), and Linda Rybova (Hanicka), and in the small part of an English teacher, Anna Massey puts in a memorable performance.
Inspiring, deeply moving, very human, this is a film that gets better with repeated viewing, and is one to own and treasure.

The other reviwers did a good job describing the love triangle, the tragic story of the Czech pilots treatment by thier own countrymen under Communism after the war, and all the other human elements to this very human, beautifully filmed melancholy film.

But I would also like to add, for aviation buffs, particularly fans of flight sims such as Il2, this is one of the best portrayals of air combat in all it's excitement, thrill, elegance, danger and FEAR, that has ever been produced. The flight scenes are breathtaking, and unusually for films dealing with world war II aviation, very effectively bring you into the cockpit, into the clouds and both behind the guns and in their lethal path... Anyone who loves WW II fighters, flying, spitfires or warbirds in general should watch this film.

When DARK BLUE WORLD begins in 1950, we find Czech citizen Frantisek Slama imprisoned by his country's Communist regime for having fought with the Royal Air Force during World War II. Slama becomes seriously ill and is transferred to the prison's hospital ward, where he comes under the care of the resident physician, also a prisoner, who's formerly of the Nazi SS. Though Frantisek spent the war fighting Germans, the two men develop a relationship based on a respect of sorts, and Slama relates his war experiences.

The film, co-produced by the Germans and Czechs, is essentially a sequence of long flashbacks in which Frantisek, a Czech air force officer in 1939 when the Germans occupied his country, tells how he and a student pilot, his friend Karel Vojtisek, flee to England to campaign on with the RAF. While there, and between aerial dogfights with the enemy, our heroes' friendship is tested by a local Englishwoman, Susan, whose husband with the Royal Navy has conveniently gone missing for a year. (I mean, isn't it always some dame that complicates a good friendship! When was the last time you saw on the silver screen two Real Men fight over a prized hunting dog, a lovingly restored '57 Chevy, or what beer to drink while watching the Big Game?)

The general theme of DARK BLUE WORLD (2 square-jawed male pals, lots of planes and explosions, and one Babe) reminds one of PEARL HARBOR, though the epic stage of the latter rendered the love story almost irritating for its presence. (Wasn't the whole purpose of the attack on PH to bomb the threesome into oblivion? Even the Japanese were apparently annoyed.) On the other hand, DARK BLUE WORLD brings all the elements of the story - the combat, the male bonding, and the boy-girl mushy stuff - down to a smaller, more manageable, and therefore more acceptable scale.

The principal actors of the film (Ondrej Vetchý as Frantisek, Krystof Hádek as Karel, Tara Fitzgerald as Susan) all create sympathetic characters that should be attractive to the audience. The air combat scenes are well done with aircraft models and several lovingly preserved Spitfires. Above all, DARK BLUE WORLD perhaps captures more than just a little of the flavor of the Battle of Britain and the camaraderie of military men, whether they were Czechs, Poles or Frenchman, who fought from foreign soil to liberate their Nazi-occupied homelands.

I can't recommend this film strongly enough. Even after the tragic events of 2001 it is difficult for most of us in the US to understand the emotion associated with the Czechs who fought alongside the allies during WWII. Most Czechs were forced to live with the nightmare of German occupation where there were few glimers of "normal" life, and fewer of heroism. Many died, some were able to fight back. This film tells the story of a few of the latter, the 3000 flyers who were able to go to Britain and fight with the allies. Don't put much stock in the cries of sentimentality that the reviewers placed on the film. These men gave up everything to fight for the freedom of their country, more so than life or death. The film effectively tells the story of their sacrifices by use of flashback -- the main character is in a political prison after the war, the fate suffered by many flyers who stayed in Czechoslovakia after the communist coup. I don't typically find flashback effective in film (did anybody ever really figure out the beginning of Chariot's of Fire) but I thought this was well done. Done by the team that did Kolya, it is time well spent. Like their previous film, they bring us insight into an important moment in the history of the past century and do it in a touching and elegant fashion.

By the way, almost half the film is in English as it takes place in England. It is unique in that way as well. I had the pleasure of seeing this film in Prague at its opening in May 2001 and it was a very pleasant surprise.