Stalingrad

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.

I have seen it countless times, the music gives me chills, it is so masterful and gives a feeling of hopelessness and comfort in death that awaited the German forces on the Eastern front

First, I'll just get a few short comings of this work out of the way.

(a) It helps if you know something about the battle before watching this documentary. You -might- feel a little lost in the bigger-picture sense without such knowledge.

(b) Those looking for an in-depth military analysis of the battle should look elsewhere. This film is brilliant in its ability to capture the experience of war, not the theory behind it. Hence, there are not a lot of maps, etc. in this movie.

(c) Sometimes the film can be a but redundant.

So, now that all of that is out of the way, on to the good stuff. What really makes this film shine is the first-person accounts by people who were actually there, and lived through it. Both ex-German and Russian soldiers are interviewed, along with Russian civilians. It is said that a soldier only really experiences war in the 1000 feet that is around him. If that is true, then this film is a horrifying, moving, and amazing account of those 1000 feet. It also abuts the historical-drama movie by the same name. The two are really worth watching in tandem. This is a bottom-up account of Stalingrad that illuminates the experiences of the common foot soldier, which is often a story not heard from the German side of things. I really feel this is "must see" for anyone with even a remote interest in WWII.

Someone once said, "may you live in interesting times." I have to say I enjoy learning about World War II history because it was such an interesting time in our civilization. For someone born 35 years ago it is hard to imagine such a brutal world existed just 65 years ago. This documentary gives the viewer so much insight into the experiences of those caught in such a historic moment.

Stalingrad was a turning point in the tide of World War II. The director, producers and writers went to great lengths to find people to tell their stories of war. This documentary is sad and wonderful. Wonderful? Because everyone can and should learn something about this moment in history. It says so much about humanity.

If the producers read this... someone should do a documentary on Paulus. I want to know what became of him after the war.

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.