Great War Movies: 'STALINGRAD'

It's tempting to call this harrowing picture a World War II version of All Quiet on the Western Front: both films take the perspective of ordinary German soldiers at ground level. Stalingrad surveys the misery of the battle of Stalingrad, the winter siege that cost the lives of almost one and a half million people, Russian defenders and German invaders alike. Not unlike Spielberg's approach to Saving Private Ryan, German director Joseph Vilsmaier rarely steps outside the action to comment on the higher purpose of the war, assuming the audience is aware of the evil of the Nazi regime. Instead, we simply follow a group of soldiers as they endure a series of gut-wrenching episodes, events which have the tang of authenticity and horror. Vilsmaier has a taste for symbolism and surreal touches, which only add to the unsettling sense of insanity this movie conjures up so well.

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REVIEW

Before there was "Saving Private Ryan", the most graphic and visceral cinematic battlefield carnage was depicted in "Stalingrad". Ironically, the raw realism which drew rave reviews for SPR had elicited little more than horror and negativity for "Stalingrad". I'm not a sadistic guts'n'gore affictionado, but war is brutal and needs to be presented in an unsanitized manner. "Stalingrad" has been, and remains, my favorite war film. It is from the German producers of "Das Boot", and presents the point of view of the common Wehrmacht soldiers of Paulus' 6th Army, who were abandoned to freeze or be slaughtered in the bombed-out ruins of the city named for Stalin. Neither the Germans nor the Russians are portrayed as heroes or supermen in this film; there is only the desperation of fighters who are forbidden retreat. The anti-Nazi views of the producers are well-known, and occasionally a bit heavy-handed, but there is an admirable attempt to stick to realism. Even the Russians are presented accurately: from the presence of the female corpsman (yes, there were thousands of Russian women combatants at Stalingrad), to the playing of the phonograph song Temnaya Noch', to Stalin's cruel Edict that "there are no POW's -- only deserters". The tense ceasefires to allow tending of the wounded are also historically accurate, and are documented in various memoirs. The T-34 tank model depicted is, unfortunately, an anacronism. But the hand-to-hand fighting through the rubble of the buildings, streets, and sewers is realistic. As is the freezing Russian winter which sapped the energy and morale of the stranded Germans reduced to scurrying like rats and eating their own horses. From the cavalier attitudes of the would-be conquerers on the train to the desperation of the hordes of would-be escapees at the airport, this film takes us along with these German soldiers, allowing us to sympathize with their plight and even form a certain detached liking for them. The futility of their campaign haunts the poignant, sorrowful ending of the film (one can't call it a climax), as Russia Herself swallows her violators.

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