Stalingrad (1993) Reviews

• Top Ten war movie in my list

  xaggurat2005-01-25

  I can believe this movie will be a serious disappointment for a person, who is used to and likes to watch Hollywood war movies. Four reasons: 1. It's made in a world, where movie makers tries to have some personality. If you think 'When We Were Soldiers'... well, there are hundreds of directors who you can imagine making a similar war movie with personality and values of a hamburger. 2. Screenplay has a different structure. There's no shocking opening scene like in 'Saving Private Ryan'. This movie starts slowly in a very nice place and ends slowly in a very bad place, without hope or feeling that the characters have achieved something by their heroic actions. 3. It is first a movie about lost causes in the world of war, and only secondly a war movie which takes place in Stalingrad. 4. War scenes portray the horror, insecurity and confusion of a battle, instead of how cool, heroic and exciting fighting looks like. In this sense, this movie is closer to reality than most of the war movies you will ever see. 'Thin Red Line' also had similar "I would probably crap in my pants in that situation"-feeling. Stalingrad, whether you think it as a movie or a war movie has so many good things in it... like honesty. Even the ordinary German soldiers were dreaming about farms in Russia when they were advancing. What a disappointment they must have had in Stalingrad! If you like to watch war movies, meaning also other war movies than When We Were Soldiers or Saving Private Ryan, you should see this one. (9/10)

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• A harrowing tale of young men being betrayed and slaughtered

  countryway_488642006-01-09

  This film affected me on many emotional levels. I saw the results of the war in East and West Berlin in 1957. While in Berlin I lived with a girl my age who lost her father in the battle for Stalingrad. Her tales made my hair stand on end as he was one of the many young Germans send there to fight as a punishment for errors,(read that as failure to win), in other battle zones. It isn't well understood, but the Eastern Front was used as a threat and as a punishment by Hitler. Even Schindler in the film Schindler's List used that threat on the train station in order to get his bookkeeper released from the death train. There are two scenes that will haunt be for the rest of my life: The scene where Lt. Hans von Witzland, played by a very young and splendid Thomas Kretschmann, and the Russian actress Dana Vavrova who plays Irina. That scene is so emotionally charged that it left both actors physically shaking. I can't imagine having to repeat that scene more than once. To have to hold that raw, totally exposed feeling/expression and body language while lights are adjusted and a different angle is used must have been physically and mentally exhausting for these two brilliant actors. They perform a brutal Dance Macabre that is both horrific and fascinating. This scene is no longer about an enemy and the one who has been conquered. It is about a young man desperate to find one moment of humanity on an endless nightmare and a young woman who hates him and herself and yet can not resolve her situation. That he is a German and she is Russian is not as important as that they are both souls in torment with no way out. The human agony of that scene is superior to anything I have seen in over 60 years of watching movies. The other is the final scene between Dominique Horwitz and Kretschmann as Fritz and Hans clinging to each other overwhelmed and miniaturized by the vast Russian winter. That final scene reminds me of Napoleon's death march from Moscow in 1812. The results were to same. No enemy can come marching into Russia and live to march out again. I began watching this film firmly committed to cheering the Russians and hating the Germans. By the end I was crying for them all. That is the message of this fine film. War is a waste...a waste of human lives, of property, and of moral and religious focus. This is a classic anti-war film not unlike All Quiet on the Western Front or What Price Glory.

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• Brutal, heartbreaking, & realistic portrayal of the bloodiest battle ever fought.

  ItemCo165272003-03-27

  I first saw Stalingrad about 7 years ago and to this day it still hits me as hard as the first time I watched it. It is the story of Leutnant von Witzland, Unteroffizier Rohleder, Obergefreiter Reiser, and Oberschütze Müller and their desperate fight for survival in the deadliest battle in the history of war: STALINGRAD. The film starts off in Italy in the summer of 1942 where their platoon is resting following heavy combat in North Africa. Soon they are on a train heading for the Eastern Front. The men of 1st Platoon laugh and joke, play games, write letters home, and enjoy the view of western Russia as they head for the Ukraine. This is as light-hearted as the film gets. What follows is a very accurate and graphic portrayal of the infamous battle. It pulls no punches. It's main antagonist is Hauptmann Haller, a field police officer who thinks nothing of allowing his men to abuse and murder Russian and Ukrainian prisoners. At one point he lines up a group of civilians and has them shot saying they were partisans. The combat scenes themselves are even more horrific. In one scene a German soldier hits a Russian over the head with a shovel as the Russian is trying to kill Ltn. von Witzland. In another scene a German soldier is cut in half by a Russian tank shell. There are many other gruesome scenes in the film, but they are necessary. The world has to see what happened in the Battle of Stalingrad. To see its brutality. To have its heart broken at the horrendous waste of the soldiers' lives. Over 2 million people lost there lives. Only 6000 of Field Marshal Paulus' 250,000-man 6th Army survived the battle. As with the battle, the film itself does not have a happy ending. And that's the way it should be. And as you watch this film, remember one thing, not every German soldier who fought in the war was a criminal. They were mostly decent people caught up in events well beyond their control.

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• Stalingrad

  prunders2007-02-04

  This is a film that I keep coming back to, for a variety of reasons. As a testament to the suffering of the ordinary soldier on the Eastern Front in the Second World War, it is a powerful one. There are a number of very powerful scenes in the film which help to capture the horror of war, such as the tank battle for instance. Furthermore, from what I can see the experiences documented in the film are by and large 'true' - if you read A. Beevor's book 'Stalingrad' you will know what I mean. The film is also successful in the sense that it doesn't allow character or plot to dominate it - it is simply a tale of survival, that attempts to depict the battle mainly from the ordinary (German) soldier's point of view. I've read somewhere that the original screenplay had to be toned down, which doesn't surprise me at all - if they tried to really show what the battle was like, it would have been almost impossible to make I'm sure. Even so, there are still some moments that are difficult to watch - this was made before Private Ryan but is possibly even harder-hitting in places. Just one word of caution - don't buy the dubbed 'English' version, it's pretty awful and spoils the film - try to get a copy in the original (German) version with English subtitles, it's far more powerful. You may need to buy a Region 1 DVD of the film in this case, as I did.

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• Glad I wasn't there!

  tgs3332004-11-12

  'The Finest Ambition of the Solider is to prevent war from ever happening, but it has always been out of their hands. It is in the hands of men whom they do not even know.' Saving Private Ryan, Das Boots, Thin Red Line, When We Were soldiers…. then there is Stalingrad! A perfect masterpiece. The acting and filming in this movie is top notch! I also think the music in this movie is great and fits the movie perfectly. Stalingrad holds no punches back in depicting the siege of Stalingrad by the German Army… and ultimately their defeat in the cold bitter Russian winter! As far as a 'war' movie goes, I would give honors to Stalingrad over Saving Private Ryan and even Liberal Hollywood's take on the siege of Stalingrad (from the Soviet point of view): Enemy At The Gates. Saving Private Ryan, though a great film, just doesn't bring the horror of war down to the common foot solider as accurately as Stalingrad. Enemy At The Gates is simply an awful movie. Of course with such a movie will come a lot of political overtones. I'll make just a few comments here. One, I am very thankful the allies won World War II. Secondly, when I think of 'Nazis', I think of Hitler and all of his cronies and all the evil villains who executed the millions of innocent Jews in the concentration camps. I believe a majority of Americans believe this way. The German soldiers fighting on the front(s) were simply following orders and bravely fought in this War as did the American, Russians and British soldiers… and to each was their own personal Hell. The sad fact about Stalingrad, in watching this movie, is that all of this really happened. Men froze and starve to death… millions of people were killed and generations were lost. Basically, this is a good War movie that ends with no heroism and accurately portrays the horror of war for the common man regardless of witch uniform they are wearing. 'Freedom is just a word until you lose it.'

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