Stalingrad

Rating:
Summary: Hell is man-made
Review: Stalingrad is one of thoses films that when watched there's no other feeling than shock. It's messages are delivered on the screen in an very shocking way thanks to the great level of realism in the combats and in it's visceral violence. This movie is whitout a doubt the WWII version of "All quiet on the Western front" showing in a vivid way all the misery and death that surrounded the german soldiers of the ill-fated Sixth Army. His characters are all starving, tired, and hopeless man forced to fight in a war that they don't understand because their leaders told them to. Along with "Saving private Ryan" and "The thin red line" Stalingrad shows in a very clear way all the savagery, brutality and lack of sense that comes with war. It's characters are very human and tragic, especially Lieutenant von Witzland that after seeing the bloodbath war really is has his beliefs about honor, obedience and loyalty as an officer unmercifuly shattered . Far way from being the nazi propaganda supermen, the german in Stalingrad were all desperate and frightened man fighting not only the russians but also the terrible winter, starvation, madness and day-to-day fear. For WW2 fanatics and people who whants to see a film that will make them think and reflect next time their government decides to blow to hell other countries just because they don't wanna play by their rules, Stalingrad is recomended.

Rating:
Summary: A Depiction of Hell on the Eastern Front
Review: "Stalingrad" is one of the few movies that depict the struggles of the German soldier on the front lines. Regardless of one's ideology, one can't help but feel some sympathy for the ill-fated men of the Sixth Army. Not only did these men have to fight the tenacious Russian soldiers but they also had to fight fear, lonliness and depravation. Director Joseph Vilsmaier does a good job of bringing the viewer into the hell that these men had to endure.

The film focuses on three main characters: Sgt. Manfred "Rollo" Rohleder, Corporal Fritz Reiser and Lieutenant Hans von Witzland. Though Rollo and Reiser are experienced combat veterans, both are stunned by the sight of the wounded and dying soldiers on the train platform just outside of Stalingrad. For Rollo and Reiser, this is a harbinger of things to come.

Lieutenant von Witzland is a young, inexperienced officer who feels he must prove himself to win the respect of his men. However, his ideals and aspirations are soon shattered by the brutality and horror of combat. Eventually, von Witzalnd realizes that this is a lost cause and he openly declares that he no longer feels bound by his oath as an officer.

Even though this movie is a bit slow at times and has an obvious political message, there's still a lot of action that will keep you interested. This is one film you will want to see over and over again. Buy it!

Rating:
Summary: Very Terrifying and very realistic in my opinion
Review: I do not want to tell you the story. But all I can say that the battle sequences in the city is one of the best I have ever seen. It almost was like those sequences in Saving Private Ryan. But this was much better (it was more detailed). but I must warn you this movie is graphicly violent, much like Saving Private Ryan (another great movie).

Some reviewers may not like this movie so try to rent it first if you can, so you can judge for yourself.

In comparism with other war movies this movie is Saving Private Ryan meets All Quiet on the Western front.

in conclusion a great war movie.

Rating:
Summary: It's a "Formula" film, but the "Formula" works very well
Review: Most World War II films which focus on the German point of view in battle tend to follow one, distinct formula -- the typical German soldier isn't a nazi, and he's just doing his job so he can go home. Film makers use this formula in order to make the German soldier more palatable to the self-conscious viewer, who in all likelihood doesn't want to feel empathy for men (even FICTIONAL men on screen) who fanatically serve the nazi cause. And, as such, formula films like this are shouted down by holier-than-thou critics who believe themselves so clever that they can make a sweeping claim that all German soldiers are fully aware of everything their government stands for, and this and that, and blah blah blah.

This type of self-defense mechanism by certain critics (some of whom have posted on this very message board) compels them to discount as larceny any film which labors to portray German soldiers as ordinary human beings, just like everybody else. It is their loss (the critics), because in protecting their preconceived notions of World War II/nazism/atrocities, they miss out on the realities that only an OBJECTIVE mind can appreciate.

STALINGRAD is an objective movie. It doesn't kiss a** to apologists and play into the ludicrous myth that every single German soldier would love to liquidate Semites at the first opportunity. It doesn't follow the (other) standard formula where in the good guys (Americans and British) heroically struggle against nazi baddies who inflict atrocities at every turn. People who believe every last German soldier embraced and fully understood nazism should ask themselves how many AMERICANS really know everything about United States foreign policy, or the American hard line in dealing with the Russians or Red Chinese, or what goes on in a top-level cabinet meeting, or what the words to the "Star Spangled Banner" are, or who their secretary of defense is, or where they can find Washington DC on a map, or any easy question about American history within the last ten years, or what the government plans to purchase with this year's military budget, or any of the Constitutional Ammendments, or when "Navy Day" is, or any American laws which vary from state to state, or if the government has any secrets it doesn't want to share.

What critics will find, I am sure, is that perhaps 9 out of 10 Americans have absolutely no idea whatsoever what goes on with their own government. Despite the internet, easy access to newspapers and other media, the power of satellite cable-television, and the availability of a vast wealth of administrative information (obtainable simply by request), many Americans don't know or simply do not care what their government is doing. And why should they? They are too wrapped up in their own lives to worry about their country on a strategic level. When a young woman goes to market to buy a pound of ground beef to make her family hamburger's for lunch, I'm sure she isn't asking herself how this purchase will affect the American economy on a pro/con basis.

Can we really expect any more from they typical German boy of sixty years ago? He is even less informed than we are today, and what is worse, he hadn't the MEANS (as we do with our libraries and computers and televisions) to get the information which would bring him greater education as to what goes on around him. Like Americans, his view of his own government is based on what the government allows him to SEE rather than what the government wants to HIDE. The Nazi government promised him vengeance against those who humiliated Germany in World War I. The Nazi goverment promised him revenge on those who drag him down. In a controlled society it is easy to abide by the message being handed down to you from above. The young soldier probably doesn't understand the strategic difficulties and world-wide ramifications of his government's decisions. He only knows that he is German. If his people need him, he will come. He finds himself deep in Russia, beleiving he is fighting for the greater good because his country TELLS him so. I am quite certain that American soldiers serving in the Middle East today find it quite appalling that the local populations tend to view them as imperialistic invaders, since the American government continually tells them they are on a quest for the greater good of all democracy.

The German soldier of World War II is not innocent, but neither is the soldier of Imperial Britain (who until the mid-1940s certainly had its share of brutal, colonial empire), nor is the soldier of the United States (who was segregated by race until the late 1940s). What we must remember is that any personal views held by soldiers are the product of not only himself, but of his society, and that means his government. His government will do everything to make itself appear morally-correct in front of its soldiers. Germans, English, Russians, and Americans usually believe what they are fighting for because their leaders convince them it is so. Even when they don't believe what they are fighting for, they will fight to save their country, their homes, and their families.

This is what happened to the German soldier/peasant of World War II. To watch "Stalingrad" is to watch hopelessness. We see American soldiers die in "Saving Private Ryan" but we can at least reconcile this with the fact that America will win the war. The German soldiers who threw their lives away at Stalingrad did it for absolutely nothing. It's better to watch Stalingrad with an open mind, and to leave any moralizing at the door.

Rating:
Summary: Very good reenactment of the battle
Review: I'd have given this movie 5 stars if the ending didn't drag out for as long as it did. The battle scene in the factory was intensively surreal, bringing out true true horror of hand to hand combat. It ranks right up there with Saving Private Ryan's opening sequence. It was a unique thing for me to see a war movie from the German point of view. I hope some of them actually did have a conscience. Too bad they all didn't. Like I said, the movie's ending was a little slow, but it did move to it's logical ending.

Rating:
Summary: A terrible, terrible movie!!
Review: What a pathetic attempt to try to make something like "Das Boot". First, the acting: It might not come across when subtitled, but when one listens to the German intonations, the whole movie sounds soooo over-acted. The actors themselves, though considered stars in their (and my) home country, have obviously wasted their talent for what is an overall disappointing piece of film. Yeah, the film: Apparently, this movie marks a return to the "good old days" of post-war German film-making (the 50s), when the role of the German "Wehrmacht" in the war was down-played; essentially, our boys were just naive but otherwise honorable tools in the hands of some bad Nazis. Sorry to spoil the party, but this movie is unacceptable.

Rating:
Summary: Visually Stunning Precusor to Saving Private Ryan
Review: This 1993 film's release in DVD letterbox format underscores and magnifies the visual brilliance of this film, which depicts episodes in the life of a German platoon during the ill-fated (for the Third Reich) Stalingrad campaign. (Watch it in German with English subtitles, to appreciate the full texture of the German spoken word). The thematic tension in the film is focused on the character of Lieutenant Hans von Witzland (Thomas Kretschman), who is a newly-appointed company commander in a Stormtrooper regiment. Von Witzland represents cultured still-ethical aristocratic "Old Germany," appreciative of Germany's new military power, but horrified by excesses sanctioned by his Nazi-indoctrinated superiors. His early attempt to protest the mistreatment of a Russian POW by a Waffen-SS soldier is met by ridicule from his superior. While the German battlefield chaplain paints the German war effort as the struggle of Western Christianity against godless Bolshevism, Von Witzland soon realizes that it is the German effort that is godless. In the middle of a room-to-room battle in a bombed-out factory, Von Witzland calls for a truce with his Russian opponents, to allow both sides to gather their wounded. The unraveling of that truce reveals the futility of one man's effort to "do the right thing," when monstrous forces on both sides conspire to defeat any ray of goodness. The reactions of his platoon members to his efforts run the gamut of approval, disbelief, and doctrinaire comdemnation.

The DVD, like many releases of older movies, lacks many of the added features of recent releases (deleted scences, director's commentary, etc.), but makes up for it by showing the visual stunningness of this film in the crystal clarity that a DVD allows. The opening scene in Italy, especially the courtyard formation / ribbon ceremony, is vivid and remains as *the* lingering visual imprint of this film. Especially well-acted is the character of Sgt. Rohleder (Jochen Nickel), who we see as the non-a**-kissing and beloved platoon sergeant, who is repeatedly jarred by the barbarity of battle, by a "Dear John" letter in which his wife announces her departure, and by a realization that the propagandistic hype about the "East" is nothing like the grim reality he sees.

Of the 1/4 million German soldiers committed to the Battle of Stalingrad, only 9000 survived, with 6000 of those as POW's. Like Gettysburg for the Confederacy, this battle was the high-water-mark of the Nazi reich. The German defeat laid bare the bankruptcy of that regime's ideology, which sacrificed a whole generation of Germans, including the platoon in this fine film, for nothing.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and enduring...
Review: Before "Saving Private Ryan" there was this powerful and total indictment of war in general and the historical opinion of the average non-political German patriot/soldier during World War II.

Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Film.
Review: First of all, this is not a star studded semi-documentary in the vein of "The Longest Day". It is a gritty, graphic tale of a German platoon. I started this DVD late in the evening, thinking I would watch a few minutes of it, then go to bed. I could not tear myself away from it.

I will not spoil the plot for you. It is a well made movie, with a good story. The DVD quality was excellent in letter box format. I had my choice of English dialogue or German with subtitles. The German dialogue is much better, as I found the dubbed translations silly and I have a problem when the dialogue does not match the movements of the mouth.

I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys history, and movies about history.

Rating:
Summary: Stalingrad missed Das Boot
Review: The video box advertised it as, by the makers of Das Boot, but the film suffered for the absence of the Wolfgang Peterson factor. What I know of this crucial battle is that the Russians and their home-turf winter stopped Hitler, and the Nazi soldiers were not treated very gently by either. I'd expected the film makers to explore primarily how German soldiers were trapped in hideous weather conditions, perhaps with a similarity to the Germans trapped underwater in Das Boot. This film's primary goal was apparently to engender compassion for the individual Nazi. As a viewer I found myself saying, "Yes, Hitler and his followers brought great pain and suffering to everyone, Germans included," which is not an epiphany, but I wanted the film to be about snow and cold. I wanted it to focus almost entirely on the theme of man against environment, which, incidentally speaking, Das Boot director Wolfgang Peterson handled rather adroitly in his most recent, The Perfect Storm. Too bad Peterson didn't direct Stalingrad. Peterson is now a royal cog in the mainstream Hollywood commercialism machine, although he occasionally brings us a quality, if overly-exploited genre, film such as In The Line of Fire, and Air Force One. This film needed him. Still, I gave it three stars. Oh, what the heck, it wasn't *that* bad. It just got my hopes up by being compared to Das Boot.