KURSK SUBMARINE MOVIE MOVIE

Max von Sydow plays a Russian admiral executing this command. “No foreign interference,” is the bureaucratic refrain. Britain and France, Norway, and the United States offering both technical help, and rescue submersibles.” Britain’s Commodore David Russell (Colin Firth) waits for permission to assist in the rescue. In Vinterberg’s film, a television newscast announces that “with Russian rescue assets apparently unable to reach survivors, offers of international assistance, are now pouring in. But no one in Moscow would ever know, much less actually care, if the rescue submersibles and their mother-ships were kept in port, slowly decaying…”

If the major warships and strategic submarines were stranded at port, that would be a national and very public embarrassment. For the admirals, the rescue assets were the easiest forces to cut without damaging their careers. Moore: “If the bases and main naval forces were suffering, the fate of the search-and-rescue forces of the Northern Fleet was even more disastrous. Trying to escape to the surface is out of the question, as it would mean an excruciating decompression sickness, known as “the bends,” during which gas bubbles expand and destroy nerves and tissue.Īfter four different diving bells and submersibles fail to connect to the submarine’s escape hatch, Admiral Vyacheslav Grudzinsky (Peter Simonischek) laments the deplorable state of the Navy’s rescue equipment (“Do the impossible with the inadequate”). Through Anthony Dod Mantle’s stylish cinematography, The Command depicts the courageous and super-human efforts by Mikhail and his men to stay alive in the last remaining compartments where they confront dwindling oxygen, surging water and freezing temperatures. The hydraulic and electrical systems had collapsed. “Kursk had lost communications, heating, ventilation, and all but emergency lighting. All the warheads and the fuel in the remaining torpedoes ignited almost simultaneously, an explosion that registered 3.5 on the Richter scale … But there is a second explosion.Īccording to Moore: “The second detonation was a truly seismic event, nearly 250 times greater than the initial blast. Mikhail and those not immediately killed by the blast, skillfully react as the 23,000-ton submarine descends 350 feet and crashes onto the seabed. A good portion of the vessel is destroyed. Throughout the Cold War, they studied the unique oceanography and acoustics of the Arctic, learning how best to exploit the conditions to compensate for the superior sonar technology of the American boats.”īut on this day, one of the submarines’ practice torpedoes explodes with an equivalent force of 220 pounds of TNT. Moore’s book explains: “For many years now, the Russians have excelled in under-ice submarine operations. Thirty ships and three submarines maneuver through the shallow Arctic waters of the Barents Sea. On the morning of August 12, 2000, the “unsinkable” Kursk is participating in the first large-scale naval exercise since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The young boy’s feelings for his father function as one of the film’s emotional pivots.

Back home, Mikhail adores his pregnant wife Tanya (Léa Seydoux) and beloved son Misha (Artemiy Spiridonov). In order to purchase the alcohol for a colleague’s wedding, the sailors pawn their maritime watches-with unforeseen consequences. The deployment in question is on the 1992-era nuclear submarine Kursk, the pride of the Northern Fleet and the largest attack submarine in the world. At least you have a deployment coming, you will get a sea bonus.” “Which will not be paid,” is the retort. “If I knew that, I would be living on it too. “So what are we supposed to live on?,” ask the seamen.

KURSK SUBMARINE MOVIE MOVIE

As the movie gets underway, angry sailors, led by Navy captain-lieutenant Mikhail Averin (Matthias Schoenaerts) on the Vidyaevo Naval Base, are demanding back pay: “Sorry gentlemen, we have received nothing from Moscow,” is the answer. The Vinterberg movie is a humanized account of the episode, and clearly takes the side of the population against the military and governmental brass. One hundred eighteen sailors died-85 instantly and 23 slowly and painfully-due to the neglect and incompetence of the Putin administration. The Kursk’s sinking was bound up with both the decay of the Russian military and the catastrophic impact of Russian capitalism. Based on Robert Moore’s book A Time to Die (2002), the movie is a fictionalized version of the August 2000 Kursk Russian nuclear submarine disaster. The Command is the US title of the 2018 English-language film directed by Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg ( The Celebration, Far From the Madding Crowd) known in most of the world as Kursk. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg screenplay by Robert Rodat and Robert Moore, based on Moore’s book, A Time to Die

Kursk submarine movie