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The Great Warrior Skanderbeg Movie Review

The Great Warrior Skanderbeg is a 1953 Albanian biopic directed by Sergei Yutkevich and starring Akaki Khorava. It’s a pretty solid spectacle.

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“Should my children forget the land of their ancestors,

you will answer to God and to me“

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The movie is actually a Soviet co-production as most of the crew was really Soviet, which is interesting and expected as the film is so epic that only a few countries including the Soviet Union could have made it back in the fifties. It functions as a historical epic, but above all else it’s a biographical picture that focuses on one of Albanian national heroes – George Kastriot Skanderbeg.

This is a man who defended the land against the Ottomans for over two decades, thus he is an icon for the country. The movie portrays him in a very heroic light, but humanism is lacking overall. The characterization for most characters is not up to par to the film’s technical aspects and I expected more memorable personalities to be honest. The acting is great, though it was odd hearing the Albanian dubbing of the Russian language.

As is the case with all epic movies, The Great Warrior Skanderbeg is also wildly uneven. There are some long sections that are less interesting and definitely messy in pace and structure, but there are other parts that are excellent and not only memorable, but also quite thrilling. The war/action sequences are superb as well as they are so well filmed and quite epic in feel.

The entire production is spectacular for its time. The costumes are realistic and excellent while the sets are terrific too. Many of the sets and  lot of the imagery here are very memorable and so is the score from Georgy Sviridov. It is the best part of the movie as it is so spectacular, rousing and with a classic feel to it that I just loved.

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The dialogue is also pretty good, but the film is thematically rather lacking. It does explore the Albanian relations with Serbians and Venetians, but I wanted more of those interesting political scenes. The movie is rather straightforward and not complex enough in its narrative, but the direction from Sergei Yutkevich is definitely excellent.

The Great Warrior Skanderbeg lacks thematically speaking and it is narratively and structurally uneven, but the war sequences are epic, the film is a spectacle throughout, some plot points are quite interesting and in particular the sets, the score, the costumes and the direction are all phenomenal.

My Rating – 3.5