Sobibor
Directed byKonstantin Khabensky
Screenplay by
Produced by
  • Elmira Aynulova
  • Nataliya Doroshkevich
  • Kestutis Drazdauskas
  • Mariya Zhuromskaya
Starring
CinematographyRamunas Greicius
Edited byYuriy Troyankin
Music byKuzma Bodrov
Production
companies
Cinema Production[1]
Fetisov Illusion
Distributed byKaroprokat[2]
Release date
  • May 3, 2018 (2018-05-03) (Russia)
[3]
CountryRussia
LanguagesRussian, German, Dutch, Polish, Yiddish
Budget$2.4 million[4]
Box office$5.1 million[5][6]

Sobibor (Russian: Собибор) is a 2018 Russian war drama film co-written, directed by and starring Konstantin Khabensky.[7][8] The picture also stars Christopher Lambert and was released on 3 May 2018 in Russia.[3] It was selected as the Russian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.[9] It received generally positive reviews from critics.

Plot

The film is based on the Sobibor revolt which occurred in 1943 in German-occupied Poland. The main character of the movie is the Jewish-Soviet soldier Alexander Pechersky, who was a lieutenant in the Red Army. In October 1943, he was deported to the Sobibor death camp, where Jews were being exterminated in gas chambers. In just three weeks, Pechersky planned an uprising with prisoners from Poland and other locations around Western Europe. This uprising was partly successful, allowing roughly 300 prisoners to escape, of whom roughly 60 survived the war.

Cast

Production

Initially the project was titled "Legend of the Escape".[10] In early reports, Andrei Malyukov was credited as director,[11] but at a press conference in September 2017, it was revealed that Khabensky in fact directed the film.[12]

Principal photography took place near Vilnius, Lithuania.[10]

Release

Samuel Goldwyn Films has secured North American distribution rights.[13] The U.S. release date is April 2, 2019.[14]

Reception

Box office

Sobibor grossed $0 in North America and $5.1 million in other territories,[5][6] against a production budget of $2.4 million.[4]

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 75% based on 16 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10.[15]

Inaccuracy

Pechersky was captured by the Germans in October 1941, not in 1943. Sobibor was the site of one of two (not the only) successful uprisings by Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners during Operation Reinhard. The revolt at Treblinka extermination camp on 2 August 1943 resulted in up to 100 escapees.

There are several inaccuracies with the place and cause of death of the particular SS-Totenkopfverbände members killed in the revolt.

  • SS-Untersturmführer Johann Niemann was not killed at the camp's armory as shown in the movie but rather in the tailor's workshop. Another inaccuracy with Niemann (played by Maximilian Dirr) is that the rank of his uniform. In the movie Niemann is ranked as SS-Oberscharführer however his real rank should be of an SS-Untersturmführer.
  • SS-Unterscharführer Walter "Ryba" Hochberg is referred to as "Berg" in the movie, following Alexander Pechersky's mistaken recollection. However, Hochberg's death occurred in the camp's garage rather than the tailor's workshop.
  • SS-Oberscharführer Karl Frenzel was not wounded during the revolt.
  • There are also inaccuracies in the decorations which Frenzel is shown as wearing: his uniform displays the 1914 Iron Cross 1st Class, and the ribbon for the second class award of the same decoration, as well as the ribbon for the Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918. He is also shown in some scenes as wearing the Baltic Cross, an unofficial Freikorps decoration. The real Frenzel was born in 1911, and so was unable to have earned any of these decorations.

The gas chambers at the camp were not partially underground as depicted, nor were there in-built crematorium as in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The bodies were removed and either buried or burnt on open-air pyres.[16] The Schlauch (or "Tube") that led to the gas chamber was not underground but an outdoor fenced path covered in branches. Leon Felhendler also did not die during the escape.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Sobibor". Cinema Production.
  2. ↑ "Хабенский и Ламберт приступили к съемкам в фильме о восстании в лагере смерти Собибор" (in Russian). Russian News Agency TASS.
  3. 1 2 Denis Korsakov. "10 российских фильмов 2018 года: Козловский уходит в тренеры, а Хабенский рассказывает о восстании в концлагере" (in Russian). Komsomolskaya Pravda.
  4. 1 2 "СОБИБОР". KinoBusiness.
  5. 1 2 "Sobibor (2018)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
  6. 1 2 "Sobibor (2018) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Nash Information Services, LLC. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
  7. ↑ "Константин Хабенский стал режиссером фильма "Собибор"" (in Russian). Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
  8. ↑ "Константин Хабенский дебютировал в роли режиссера" (in Russian). OK!.
  9. ↑ Kozlov, Vladimir (10 September 2018). "Oscars: Russia Selects 'Sobibor' for Foreign-Language Category". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
  10. 1 2 "Фильм "Легенда о побеге" с Хабенским и Ламбертом выйдет в прокат весной" (in Russian). RIA Novosti.
  11. ↑ "В Литве начались съемки "Легенды о побеге" с Хабенским и Ламбертом" (in Russian). RIA Novosti.
  12. ↑ "Картина о побеге из концлагеря "Собибор" стала режиссерским дебютом Константина Хабенского" (in Russian). TASS.
  13. ↑ Barraclough, Leo (November 23, 2018). "Samuel Goldwyn Takes U.S. Rights to Russian Oscar Entry 'Sobibor'". Variety. Retrieved November 27, 2018.
  14. ↑ Billington, Alex (March 1, 2019). "Official Trailer for 'Sobibor' About a Soviet Escaping from a Nazi Camp". First Showing. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  15. ↑ "Sobibor (2018)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved October 10, 2021.
  16. ↑ Arad, Yitzhak (1999). Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka : the Operation Reinhard death camps. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-585-27817-2. OCLC 45729008.
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