An overlooked film that deserves a place among the fine films of its era: Coup de Grace

Who knew about the war in the "Baltic States" after WWI and the Russian Revolution, in which the Baltic (mostly German) soldiers and aristocrats fought the Bolshevik and Communist guerilla armies trying to spread Soviet state further into Europe? Victor Schlondorff's 1978 Coup de Grace tells of these long-forgotten battles (the movie is based on a novel by Marguerite Yorcenour), focused on a group of aristocratic German fighters housed in the ancestral castle of one of the officers (the castle had been abandoned to servants and the long-suffering sister and aunt of the officer during the war - reminds me a little of the castle in The Seventh Seal abandoned by the men during a Crusade). This is only to a degree a war movie - though some of the scenes of trench warfare are among the highlights; it's really movie about sex and power - with the sister, Sophia, at the center of all of the complex tensions and relations. The movie is tense and engaging throughout and requires pretty close attention, as the relationships among the characters are nuanced, full of surprises, and in constant transition. Some of the great scenes include the movement of troops in the snow, the New Year's party that goes out of control, and the final scenes, a confrontation of the officers and a rebel troupe, at a remote railroad station. This film is pretty obscure - I don't know anything about the director and not much about German cinema from the 1970s - but I think it deserves a place among the fine movies of its era, many by much more well-known "auteurs." Criterion thinks so, too.