The Battle of Neretva

1969 [SERBO-CROATIAN]

Drama / History / War

5
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 64% · 2 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 64% · 250 ratings
IMDb Rating 7.0/10 10 4278 4.3K

world war ii river battle 1940s

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Plot summary

In January 1943 the German army, afraid of an Allied invasion of the Balkans, launched a great offensive against Yugoslav Partisans in Western Bosnia. The only way out for Partisan forces and thousands of refugees was the bridge on the river Neretva.

Director

Veljko Bulajic Photo
Veljko Bulajic

Top cast

Curd Jürgens Photo
Curd Jürgens as Lohring
Franco Nero Photo
Franco Nero as Riva
Orson Welles Photo
Orson Welles as Senator
Yul Brynner Photo
Yul Brynner as Vlado
720p.BLU
1.35 GB
1280*546
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles
23.976 fps
2 hr 29 min
Seeds 11

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Igor_Husak 8 / 10

Saving Private Ryan on Yugoslavian way

There is something special about big films made in commanded economies. Because they had not only artistic but also educational and "raising national spirit" function, they were filmed with big budget and almost national participation (on more or less voluntary base)- forget Hollywood free market film.This film is not exception - it's one of the biggest Yugoslavian projects made with dream team - most famous and appreciated actors and actresses, respected director and episode roles of famous international stars - Yul Brynner and Orson Wells.The other side of the story with such films is theirs success. Most of them are to pathetic and politically made to be accepted anywhere beyond the borders of their own country. The Battle of Neretva is different - it became well accepted broad wide, mostly in third world but even is some high developed countries like Italy and even got nominated for Oscar.So if you got lost and somehow find yourselves on this page and wonder what kind of film this is here's the summary - expensive Yugoslavian epic story with LOT and LOT of action in less explicit but Saving Private Ryan type spiced with Partisans (good guys) vs Nazis (bad guys) story. Give it a chance - you may find it refreshing, original and interesting compared with Hollywood war films. Spielberg probably learned a lot watching it.
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Reviewed by pertti.jarla 8 / 10

Battle of Neretva: a peek into a lost classic

It is sad that the most widely distributed version of this Yugoslavian war epic "Bitka na Neretvi" is the 102 minute version edited and dubbed in USA by Commonwealth United Films. This version, known as "The Battle of Neretva" has been shortened by a full hour. It looks a bit like a long trailer, offering samples of what is obviously a big scale, melodramatic giant of a film, like "The Longest Day". At times the re-editing looks like it has been made with an axe, some dialogue being cut from the middle of a sentence.

I have just seen, however, a longer Commonwealth version: 127 minutes, 25 minutes longer. This is a far superior version, professionally edited into a coherent, well flowing narrative. It seems that the 102 minute "stub" has been edited from this. I can only imagine how much deeper the characterization would be with the 40 minutes still missing from the original. The Italian and German versions are longer than this 127 minute version, and they have been released on DVD. Still, for anyone preferring an English translation, this could be the best version around. Sadly it only seems to be available on VHS.

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