Bajtársak

Some people are fooled by the distributor's text and expect epic battles, they get bored, they don't understand why the director intersperses the final battle with a birth scene, and since they don't know much about the North-South war, they inevitably don't learn much either. I saw Class of '61 definitely as strong film by TV standards, and while it deals with the old familiar idea of the pointlessness of war, with friends and relatives shooting at each other, it deals with it perfectly. The screenplay surprised me by how balanced it is and doesn't favor either side (although for a while it seemed to me that it preferred the Southerners), Janusz Kaminski's excellent cinematography was a delight for the eyes as always, and John Debney's soundtrack, unheard to this day, played in my ears. The aforementioned battle had everything it was supposed to have, and as for the excellent slave storyline, I wouldn't put much stock in Steven Spielberg having a hand in how engaging it was. (2013.06.02)