Stalingrad (2003)

Touches You

Absolutely Fantastic

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Before we had films like Saving Private Ryan, Stallingrad is widely seen as one of the most graphic wartime dramas ever made, But the amount of raw graphic battlefield carnage might have won it awards at the time, but for a lot of people it put them off because it was classified as a horror film. But if you overlook the "horror" factor and accept it for what it is then its a really great film. It still remains one of my favourite beach war dramas. You also have to take into account that when the film was made the production team were very much anti nazi. Their are no heros in this film, just soldiers ordered to defend their country fight the enemy and most of all forbidden to retreat.

This is a conventional and limited treatment of an extraordinary subject. It is conventional in its use of film and is limited to the suffering caused by war. It is a film that deals with a battle only in a broad and almost incidental sense: Suffering is the exhaustive theme.One film would have been adequate to see alternately survivors sat in artfully dimmed spaces emotionally and repetitively recounting suffering and footage of people on the move or killed. To make the point and lather it home we get the clichéd Volga vistas and stirring orchestral music, too.Film should be employed innovatively (or not) to match the subject - be it suffering or the account of a siege and urban warfare. These films deal with the former blandly and little with the latter. If we are not to become inured to suffering then director's please rise to the occasion.

Stalingrad named so by supreme leader of Russia Joseph Stalin, for his personal favorite city on the Volga River. STALINGRAD appeared on TV as a three episode documentary. A definite stark look at World War Two as it was dragging to an end. This 156 minute documentary features newsreel footage, military footage from both sides and films from actual soldiers of the war. Interviews with survivors of that war at times is heartfelt. The city was picked by a delusional Adolph Hitler as he saw the capture of Stalingrad as the possible crowning event to his victory in the war. The ego-maniacal leader had little concern that his German 6th Army was running out of fuel and food. Tanks were running out of fuel withing sight of the city. These soldiers were already starving before they managed to cross the Volga. The battle raged for about six months finally concluding in February of 1943. At one time the Nazis controlled 90% of the city, but a tenacious throng of Soviet defenders managed to surround the 6th Army that finally quit fighting all together for Hitler. No help was coming and there was little regard from Hitler, believing that his troops should be steadfast with willpower as they took part in one of the bloodiest battles on the Eastern Front. A bombed-out city was not about to be taken by the Germans.

This documentary gives very good insight in the battle of Stalingrad, the gruesome city combat and the blockade of the sixth german army. However, it is not for history buffs or strategic experts, as it focuses on personal experiences and the stories of some of the last living participants in this turning point of the second world war.Written by one of the precursors for popular history shows on german Network TV, Guido Knopp, the pattern for the three-part show is similar to his other releases: archive footage of the actual events is combined with testimonies of former soldiers or other participants of the war.This gives the documentary a very personal note, with some of the german soldiers, now well in their eighties, bursting into tears while remembering their rescue from the encircled city. This first-hand report of the cruelties of war is what leaves viewers touched.From what I know, this documentary is available in German only and is contained as an extra DVD to the 1993 movie "Stalingrad" by Joseph Vilsmair.