This is under P because of the sniper herself Pavlichenko.
Writer: Maksim Budarin, Max Dankevich, Leonid Korin, Sergey Mokritskiy, Egor Olesov (Screenplay)
Starring: Yuliya Peresild, Evgeniy Tsyganov, Oleg Vasilkov, Nikita Tarasov, Joan Blackham
Plot: A story of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the most successful female sniper in history.
Runtime: 1 Hour 50 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Interesting Look at Historical Figure
Story: Battle for Sevastopol starts as we meet Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Peresild) daughter of an English teacher, and Captain, who proves to be an expert marksman on a casual day out at the shooting range, she gets recruited for training by the military, while wanting to continue her studies and fall in love with a doctor Boris (Tarasov).
When World War II breaks out, Lyudmila finds herself drafted as one of the elite snipers, during this time, she builds up a reputation of being the deadliest woman in the war, killing over 100 soldiers to help her country in the fight against Hitler.
Thoughts on Battle for Sevastopol
Characters – Lyudmila Pavlichenko is known as Lady Death because of her sniper kill numbers, we follow her from her quiet student era, to her first recruitment to the war and when she met first lady Ruzvelt who wants to learn from her and educate her. The time we follow shows her to be a cold character, not finding love easy and not blinking with the number of soldiers she kills. Along her journey Lyudmila meets different soldiers, a doctor that offer her a chance of love or try to put their own power over her, with Eleanora Ruzvelt being the woman that wants to learn more about her, understand how she could make such a difference.
Performances – Yuliya Peresild is wonderful in the leading role, she brings to life both sides of her character, the deadly soldier and the woman who wants a normal life. In the supporting cast we have everyone performing well, despite a couple of reporter roles feeling heavily dubbed and not fitting the scene they are in.
Story – The story here follows Lyudmila Pavlichenko from her college years, war stories and her interactions with Eleanora Ruzvelt, the ups and downs of these stages of her life and the stories behind her incredibly high kill count for the Soviets. The way this story is told splits between the different stories, where he jump into the war time moments as the interactions get filled in, the scars, the reason behind everything she does, it does all work well, with them playing out more like memories of the 1942 version of her. While the story may have changed from the truth about her for dramatic effect in the story, the facts behind her kill count does remain true.
Biopic/War – We do follow a couple of stages of Lyudmila’s life, while what she did in the war was incredible breaking barriers along the way, it is see how she is willing to tell the stories which is amazing to see.
Settings – The film shows us the difficult situations Lyudmila finds herself in, with the war settings showing the horrors of the conflict, while the American settings show us just how she never fitted in the crowd locations.
Scene of the Movie – The final speech.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The love angles don’t seem as interesting as the rest of the film.
Final Thoughts – This is an interesting look at another major figure in the World War II conflict, showing us how they made themselves big names in the war effort.
Overall: History Lesson 101.
