If you expect a good war movie, with some video game-like scenes, it's not for you. Albeit the movie is very accurate in depicting contemporary armies, weapons and such - what else would you expect from a Russian movie? - it has nothing to do with history. Rather it looks like a mystic thriller until you get to the end.
The entire story of the White Tiger is not the central point of the movie, despite it looks like so. Whatever is the White Tiger, whoever drives it, or whatever happened to our hero before he was found is not the point of this movie. They are both symbols, and they are both misguides. While the viewer is lost in trying to cope with their meanings, puzzled whether Naydenov is a phoenix, rebirth from fire, or the White Tiger is supposed to be some godly chariot... while it is not.
This, dear viewers, is a quite delicate piece of film. There is a reason for changing the pace from an action movie to a Tarkovsky-like scene with the peace treaty and the dinner, and then the almost boring shot with the march of the POWs. And it is all revealed in the very last scene, with the person sitting at the fireplace and resembling Hitler, or is he Hitler himself? This scene itself is the answer to the mystery of the White Tiger.
Here we zoom out from the entire story. The Second World War is just a plot device. We are being delivered a teaching. And it is: Whatever happens in history is viewed through many people's glasses. All will distort it, and this results in obviously false stories of a ghost tank being able to obliterate entire divisions, or an undead tankman who is trying to fight it. And when such stories can be created, there is always space for more. Such story is the eternal guilt of the German people for what happened. Yes, dear viewers, this film is a very brave criticism on people who falsified our history: the White Tiger is nothing else but forgery itself. It symbolizes the stories born in the storms of history which last for decades, centuries even. This is what Naydenov's final words mean.
Indeed, it is a Russian war movie which super-gently assumes that Germans are not to be held guilty of the war, because most of history is actually made up. And I'll let you figure why the Jews are mentioned in the very last scene. Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!
