Battle of Neretva (film)

In 1943, Adolf Hitler orders the final destruction of the Yugoslav Partisans. This forces them and thousands of refugees to begin a trek northward through the Bosnian Mountains. Their goal is to reach the bridge at Neretva in order to escape. Their trip is fraught with danger every step of the way and they have to face German tanks, Italian infantry, Chetnik Cavalry, strafing airplanes, disease and natural elements.

Bridge on the Neretva river, built and twice-destroyed during the shooting of the film.

Battle of Neretva was the first of a series of huge state-sponsored World War II film productions. It had a staggering budget approved by Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito. Different sources put it anywhere between $4.5 million and $12 million. Global stars such as Sergei Bondarchuk, Yul Brynner, Franco Nero, Orson Welles, etc. flocked to communist Yugoslavia attracted by the huge sums of money being offered.

Shot over 16 months with funds put up in largest part by over 58 self-managed companies in Yugoslavia, the movie featured a combined battalion of 10,000 Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) soldiers. Four villages and a fortress were constructed for the film and destroyed. Several JNA-inventory Soviet T-34 tanks, touched up to look like German Panzers, met the same fate. Even used several Yugoslavian planes Soko 522 like germans luftwaffe planes with Balkenkreuz on the wings.

A railway bridge over the Neretva in Jablanica was destroyed.[5] Director Bulajić's justification for demolishing the bridge rather than getting the shots in studio was that it would become a tourist attraction. The bridge was thus blown but because none of the footage was usable due to the billowing smoke that made it impossible to see anything, it was decided that the bridge should be repaired and destroyed again. The problem with the excessive smoke occurred again and the scenes of the bridge being blown up in the film were shot using a table-size replica at a sound stage in Prague.[4] The Yugoslav public was updated on the shooting progress via pieces in the country's print media.[6][7]

The film has been edited in to numerous versions. Runtimes vary by location, the regional prints also change the story due to edits that add or remove scenes:

• North America: 106 minutes
• Spanish: 113 minutes
• European: 127 minutes
• UK/Australia: 127 minutes
• Germany and Croatia: 142 minutes each, although they are not the same print.
• Serbia: 160 minutes

Most of the actors spoke their native language and subtitled in the original release. Afterwards the film was dubbed in English and distributed world-wide with subtitles for some scenes. The English dubbed versions, running between 106 and 127 minutes, were rescored by Bernard Hermann as the original film score by Vladmir Kraus Rajteric had been damaged in the redubbing process. However, the German and Croat-language releases contain the original score.[8]

Sergei Bondarchuk and Orson Welles at the premiere in Sarajevo on 29 November 1969.

In 1999, a poll of Croatian film fans found it to be one of the best Yugoslavian films ever made.[9]

• Force 10 from Navarone, a fictional account of part of the battle
• List of Yugoslav films
• List of most expensive non-English language films
• List of submissions to the 42nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Yugoslav submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

• Bitka na Neretvi at IMDb
• The Battle of Neretva at AllMovie
• Battle of Neretva at the TCM Movie Database
• Battle of Neretva at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Razgovor s Veljkom Bulajićem (in Croatian)