Fantasia 2010: FIRST SQUAD Review

[The much anticipated FIRST SQUAD gets an afternoon bow at the Sallle J.A. de Seve screen at Fantasia, and in light of the very much packed house at this screening, we are bumping Mack's review back to the top of the page for your reading pleasure.]

It is 1942 and the war has stalled along the Eastern Front. Desperate to advance Hitler's forces turn to the Ahnenerbe, the secret occult division of the SS, to raise the spirits of their dead ancestors to fight on their behalf. Should they succeed it will be an all out slaughter, for how can the Russian army possibly stand against the forces of the undead?

First Squad, the joint venture of Russian authorship and Japanese animation makes a worthy attempt at melding fiction and non-fiction, placing a tale of supernatural warfare into the real world. Tapping into the immensely talented Studio 4C all the fantastical elements were animated. In mock-documentary style, but based on authentic documentation, First Squad reveals through interviews with soldiers, historians, psychologists and such that during World War II Nazi Germany began conducting a series of investigations into the occult and supernatural , looking for anything to give them the upper hand. In response Russia was also conducting their own experiments and research.

Our heroine Nadya is recruited into this group, 6th Squad. Through a series of flashbacks we meet her friends and see them training and developing their skills. Nadya falls in love with one of her classmates. Everyone hangs out together and they laugh a lot. Then the Germans invade Russia and only she survives.

As the story goes on the German forces have managed raise an army of dead soldiers under the command of a vicious Baron who ravaged the land some 700 years before. The lone surviving member of 6th squad, Nadya must cross over to the other side and recruit her friends and former squad members.

The original plan for the project was to make a series out of it and what makes up the film is the first episode, lengthened out to near feature length with the talking heads of German and Russian veterans from the battles used as a staging ground for the supernatural elements of the story. This leads to a concern. The film doesn't feel complete. It doesn't feel so much like a film than a lengthy television episode. What makes it harder to accept as a stand alone and as a whole work is the great reveal at the end of the last battle which I suppose was meant to be a cliffhanger of sorts. Though it does leave you wanting more which in my mind, with the themes and content of this project, I don't think is a bad thing at all.

The documentary segments of the film feel and look authentic. The animation, I felt, could have been sharper but as stated before because the original plan was for a television series the animation looks good but not great. For me the animation has that small screen feel to it rather then the finer detail and effort for a big screen effort. Does that make sense? I do wish there was more of it though.

Well intended and entertaining.