Alicia I love this movie so much

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Cody One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

sergepesic There is no war like one fighting on your land. When everything you know or hold dear is in danger, the loved ones, your home, the graves of the dearly departed. " Our Own" is a hard, uncompromising look at the Second World War, without embellishments of ideology, just sharp, focused description of the horrors and people who either live them or create them, or sometimes both. In the early days, in the summer of 1941, three soldiers escape from Germans and hide in the near by village, the home of one of them. There is no glory nor propaganda in this tale, just blood, guts and tears. And fear, thick and smelly,that eats the soul and dirties everything it touches. And it touches one and all, without mercy. Great movie.

Lee Eisenberg Dmitri Meskhiev's "Svoi" (which means "one's own") focuses on the moral dilemma of some Soviet soldiers during WWII. After they escape a POW camp, they end up on a farm. But this farm, while Russian, turns out to be not much different from anything operated by the Nazis. The character Nikolai, due to his manipulative actions, has more control over things than the Nazis do. To Starosta, the Chekist represents the 1930s repression in the USSR. As for why Starosta doesn't kill the man at the end...it's because the man is still one of his OWN (not a German).I certainly recommend this movie. Full comprehension of the plot does require some understanding of Soviet policy during WWII, namely that Stalin vowed to punish the family of any soldier who surrendered to the German army. But anyway, it's a really good movie.

cat-that-goes-by-himself I would call this movie "anti-Zvezda". As "Zvezda" was the archetype of the brainless glorification of Russian patriotism, "Svoi" is a kind of archetypal self-indulging praise of the "slavic soul" (for lack of a better term).The 3 main protagonists are absolute anti-heroes, motivated only by instincts and urges, cunning rather than intelligent, emotional rather than rational, calculating rather than friendly. I felt like the director was patting the audience on the head, saying "see, I show us at our worst, but we're still a great people". A strange case of reverse-patriotism ?Don't get me wrong : I happen to like the Russian way of thinking myself (as far as a "foreigner" is supposedly able to grasp it :)), but here frankly I think the director went way over the top. The result is a heavily demagogic movie, wading in senseless chaos and human degradation with an all too obvious nihilistic pleasure."Svoi" reminded me of the very disappointing sequel "nezavisimaia zhizn'" ("an independent life") of the excellent "zamri, umri, voskresni" (freeze, die, resurrect) from director Vitali Kanevski. I mean to say, "svoi" could have been a very good movie with a bit more finesse and some sense of proportions.Too bad, since the story in itself has a great potential, the director knows how to shoot powerful and beautiful scenes and the actors are really good. This made my disappointment only worse. But here again, I'm no Russian ;).

betancur I'm sure 'Svoi' (or whatever it is in English) is the best Russian movie of 2004. Actually i wasn't ready for the impression this film would make on me. 2004 was a great year for the Russian cinematography, we had a lot of good movies but this one seems to be not as commercial and blockbuster-like as many of them. Khabenskiy is becoming a real star cause he is in almost every film shot last year. He's everywhere but i like him and think that it makes him just better as an actor. The very beginning of 'Svoi' is a bit confusing because of shots with the soldier head smashing by the tank. By the way the film is really naturally made. I mean you should be ready for some shocking moments. The movie itself is good because of Stupka, Garmash & Khabenskiy's acting, fantastic music and unusual photography. Watch it and you'll see why it's so good, so Russian.