Kursk: The Last Mission
Dir Thomas Vinterberg, France/ Belgium/Luxembourg 2018 On UK release
This is a dramatisation of the attempts to rescue survivors from the wreck of the Kursk,a Russian nuclear submarine that exploded during a naval exercise in the Barents Sea in August 2000. The story is told from four perspectives: the survivors aboard the sub, led by Mikhail (Matthias Schoenaerts); the survivors’ families, led by Mikhail’s wife Tanya (Léa Seydoux); the Russian rescue efforts, led by Admiral Grudszinsky (Peter Simonischek); and the Royal Navy rescue team, led by Commodore Russell (Colin Firth).
The first thing to say is that the film is superbly gripping. Viewers in the UK, due to the Royal Navy’s involvement, may be aware of how the incident concluded – as I was – but frankly it doesn’t matter. Watching historical events unfold before your eyes gives a new perspective: reading about an explosion on a sub doesn’t prepare you for seeing it happen (even in a recreation) on screen.
The inherent problem with any recreation is accuracy; there have been plenty of attempts to film an accurate account of General Custer’s last battle, all hampered by the fact that there were no US survivors. So there is a conflict in Kursk between the Russian military version of what happened and international accounts. Filter this through the director’s requirement to tell a good story and you begin to see the problem. There is a lengthy scene where the Russian top brass meet with survivors’ families and feed them misinformation intended to reassure them that everything possible was being done. At one point, a woman who has been haranguing the top man (Max Von Sydow) is forcibly sedated and removed from the meeting. This actually happened and can be seen on leaked footage – but what the film doesn’t do is show you that the top man in question at that meeting was one Vladimir Putin. This question of accuracy is compounded by a somewhat biased depiction of the various authorities. The Russian sailors and their families are shown to be salt of the earth types, downtrodden and underpaid but faithful and professional. The Russian top brass, however, are callous, intransigent and motivated solely by the need to prevent national embarrassment, even at the cost of lives. The British – represented by that beacon of all that’s decent and kind, Colin Firth – are depicted as the opposite: resourceful, helpful and determined to risk their own lives if necessary to save those of their counterparts. It’s simplistic, to say the least.
Is this the last word on the Kursk? Of course not and neither was it intended to be. Considered purely as a film, the acting is fine, the story zips along and the tangle of events is explained adequately; taken at face value, it’s well worth a look.
Daniel King
★★★★★