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 he predicament for German filmmakers who want to tackle
World War II is this: how do you make a movie, with heroes and such, about a
historical period when your country was out slaughtering anyone and everyone who
wasn't part of their "great white race"? The movie
"Stalingrad" answers that question by tackling the dilemma head on,
and instead of heroes we have anti-heroes. Does it work? Answer: Every now and
then, but not always.
The background to 1993's "Stalingrad" is the
Battle of Stalingrad, a brutal 2-year fight for Russia's most important city
that claimed millions of lives, soldiers and civilians. Hoping to choke off the
Russian Army and take Russia, Hitler makes a hard push to destroy Stalingrad,
throwing everything he has at to achieve this end. But the Russians also know
the value of Stalingrad, and Stalin throws everything including the kitchen sink
at the invading Germans. (For the Russian perspective on this battle, see "Enemy
at the Gates.")
Instead of focusing on the war plans and tactics of the
battle, "Stalingrad" does the wise thing and decides to follow a small
company of soldiers instead. When we first meet Reiser, Rohleder, and Muller
they are in the comparable paradise of occupied Italy. Shipped off to join the
Russian front, the trio brings along a fresh-faced Lieutenant who hails from a
family of distinguished soldiers. At Stalingrad, whatever order or loyalty the
soldiers brought with them immediately disintegrates, until half of the company
is deserting and the other half are dying from the winter climate.
To watch "Stalingrad", you would think the German
Army has no semblance of loyalty at all among its ranks. While I am not an
expert on German military matters, I'm hardpressed to believe that the soldiers
in "Stalingrad" can be so overtly disrespectful and lacking in
protocol. Besides openly calling their new Lieutenant every name in the book to
his face, the soldiers seem hesitant to follow any type of orders at all. With
soldiers like these, how the heck did the Germans nearly conquer the world 60
years ago?
Also, there isn't the epic feel you would expect from a
movie of this massive budget. There is really only one major battle scene, which
takes place early in the film and lasts for about 15 minutes, but even that
battle doesn't exactly meet the criteria of "large scale." Later on,
there's a tank battle on a frozen landscape, but I am completely at a loss to
understand the strategy or tactic of that particular battle, and as a result it
seemed rather superfluous.
Like a lot of War Movies, "Stalingrad" has its
share of "War is Hell" moments, like a body shredded in half by mortar
fire and soldiers losing control of their bowels during battle. But compared to
the physical and emotional havoc of movies like "Saving
Private Ryan" and "The
Thin Red Line", "Stalingrad" comes across as rather tame.
After the film's first battle scene, the rest of the movie is a series of
seemingly random occurrences where the company slowly but surely degrades into
unwilling soldiers and, ultimately, deserters.
I mentioned that the German filmmakers have decided to
tackle the infamy of the German army during World War II. Unfortunately this
also leads to one problem: the movie makes the mistake of portraying brutal
German officers committing various war crimes as too cartoonish. These
characters mind as well have "evil" written on their foreheads for all
the subtlety the film offers them. I understand the need to accept and show
German brutality during World War II, but even the very American "Band
of Brothers" showed German soldiers in a more even light. I half
expected "Stalingrad's" evil Germans to sprout hooves, horns, and exchange their
Lugers for pitchforks.
There is a lot to like about "Stalingrad", but
it's not much of a war movie, I'm afraid. There are too many broad strokes and
unbelievable situations. The characters' interactions with the Russians are also a
little hard to swallow. During a prisoner exchange one night, a German and Russian soldier exchange food for some reason. Later, a Russian female soldier
who has been tied up in a German officer's hideout and repeatedly used as a sex
toy decides she can let go of that whole rape thing and lead a group of German
deserters through Russian lines. Yeah, okay, whatever.
"Stalingrad" is most ineffective when it tries
too hard to embrace its German past. Had the film stuck to looking at the war
and the battle for Stalingrad from a low-level grunt's POV, it would have been
much more successful. Because the soldiers we're following are front line men,
there's not even a need to show obvious German war crimes. Whenever we do see
German officers acting "villainous", one can't shake the feeling that
we've taken a detour from the film's main story.
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