Victory: keep the history in mind

VICTORY. Starring Michael
Caine, Max von Sydow and Syl-
Vester Stallone. Directed by
John Houston. At local
_ theatres. —

The screen credits in this film
about Allied prisoners in a Nazi
camp make it clear that ‘‘all char-
acters and events are fictitious.”
But even when fiction deals with
historical events it still has a re-
sponsibility to be accurate. And
When war fiction tries to portray

the POWs in Victory appears to be
fighting boredom. They are well-
dressed — including freshly press-
ed shirts —they still have their wrist
watches and rings and, although
they may not eat well, they don’t
appear to be hungry. —

Michael Caine, who’sa bit chub-
by for someone portraying a pro-
fessional soccer player has had his
career temporarily interrupted by
the war. He coaches the men at soc-
cer to pass the time. A likeable
working class character, he’s put

(cuss oan cape rN me

the Nazis as ‘‘not so bad’’ it leads to
a danger of rewriting history.

To set the record straight the
Nazis weren’t swayed by the Ge-
neva Convention in their treatment
of war prisoners. The bulk of their

Captives were from the Soviet ar- .

my, more than all other prisoners
combined. They, along with the ci-
Vilian populations of the conquer-
ed nations, were forced into slave
labor and worked to death. Some
5,750,000 Soviet soldiers were
taken captive during the war; less
than one million lived.

Far fewer British, American and
Canadian soldiers were actually
taken prisoner. With the exception
of the fiasco at- Dieppe, the
Western Front was left relative-
ly untouched until 1945 (when it
was obvious the Red Army

would liberate all of Europe).
Although handled mildly by the
Nazis in comparison to the Sov-
lets, they were still the victims

Of sadistic treatment.
But the biggest inconvience to

(vio an oe arse et has SS:

off by the Oxford types who run
the camps’ escape committee and
objects to their further jeopardiz-
ing the men’s lives.

Caine is challenged by gentle-
man Nazi propagandist (Max von
Sydow), a former professional soc-
cer player himself who believes that

“‘men’s differences should be set- -

tled on the soccer field.”

Sydow proposes to Caine that he
form asoccer team of Allied POWs
to play against the German na-
tional team in Paris — after all
‘““Germany has never beat Eng-
land,” he tells his SS superior. An’
Allied defeat to Germany would
provide proof of Aryan superion-
ty. :

3 There are a few touches of real-
ism in the film. As it opens a pris-
oner trying to escape is shot and
when Caine asks for some captured
East European players to round
out his team, he’s told that such
prisoners “‘don’t exist.”” When a
handful do arrive they are walking
skeletons.

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The film’s climax — the game —
turns a movie audience into soccer
fans. By half time with the help of
rigged refereeing the score stands
— Wehrmacht 4, Allies 0. An
escape route provided by the
French underground can avoid a
humiliating second half. But now,
the game that they originally agreed
to take part in only as a cover for
the escape attempt, has become the
main thing: they want to win.

From then on the magic of Bra-
zil’s Pele and the other real life ath-
letes take over. Slow motion effects
give a roller coaster feel to your
stomach as Pele does a back flip to
tie the score. ©

The masses of spectators partici-

pate in the victory, thronging over
the Nazis en masse and put civilian
clothes on the players as they all run
away. An exhilarating ending. But
truth is sometimes stranger than
fiction.

In Kiev, Ukraine stands a monu-

ment to the Dynamos. They were:

captured Soviet soldiers. The fas-
cists made them a bargain: Play a
Nazi team, if you lose, you'll get
preferential treatment and survive
the war; if you win, you’ll be exe-
cuted. The game took place before
a huge Soviet audience in Kiev. The
Dynamos won. They were killed.
Victory is worth seeing. Just
keep the facts in mind.
—K.M.

a

~Teneenoenennnsonnnemeammenenne)
E@CKS
|

As always, his verse
is for working people

JOE WALLACE: POEMS.
The Collected Poems of Joe
Wallace. Progress Books,
Toronto, 1981. Paper $6.95.

It would not have surprised
Joe Wallace, could he have
known, that his death in 1975
went unrecorded by the Van-
couver daily papers. It was con-
sistent with their ignoring of his
work during his lifetime while

- they lavished praise on lesser

ed in these lines:

The poet who is worth his salt

Finds clarity a fatal fault

His verse is surely heaven-
sent '

When only God knows what
he meant.

The attitude of the daily press
and major publishers to Wal-
lace and his work is a reproach
to Canadian journalism and lit-
erature. The working people
who read Wallace’s work never
had trouble understanding what
he meant. He put their own
thoughts into memorable lines
and helped to shape their philos-
ophy with the clarity of his own.
By publishing Joe Wallace:
Poems, the first comprehensive
collection of his work, Progress
Books is restoring to working
people poetry written for them
that has been unavailable for

"years. ras
In death as in life it is imposs-
‘ible to separate the poet from

poets whom he so deftly impal-

- Weekly, subsequently the Daily

. Moscow in 1964.

executive in the’20s he becamea
columnist for the Clarion .

Clarion, in the ’30s, drawing on
his work among the unemploy-
ed and in the Canadian Labor
Defence League for his themes.

Poems poured from his pen
and he was the first Canadian
poet writing in English to hail
the Russian Revolution in his
poem, “‘Lenin Lies Asleep in
Moscow,’ written in 1924.It was
not until 1943, however, that his
first collection of poetry was
published in his native land. Ca-
nadian critics generally ignored .
it, but in the socialist countries
his work was widely translated
and read, culminating in an
English edition of his collected
works, The Radiant Sphere,
published in 15,000 copies at

To the end of his days at the
age of 85, Wallace continued to

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE— SEPT. 18, 1981—Page 11