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It is so gratifying to finally scrutinize a major motion report made about the WWII Russian Front. After all, it was the Red Army that inflicted 80% of Germany’s total casualties in the war, a fact that many Americans remain sadly ignorant of. It is high time we salvage past Frosty War attitudes and pay tribute to the heroism of the Soviet Union in its bitter but ultimately triumphant struggle against Nazism. _Enemy at the Gates_ is a movie of myth proportions, featuring generous overall performances by a solid cast as well as a spectacular cinematic recreation of the bombed-out city of Stalingrad.
Still, the movie tends to high-tail at times, and could have been powerful better. The appreciate triangle subplot was more of a distraction than anything else, taking up time that could have been better veteran to enlighten more of the awesome fable of the battle of Stalingrad as a whole. Rather than simply having the German commander plot, “These snipers are demoralizing my people,” it would have been nice to have actually “seen” a diminutive bit more of how the actions of Zaitsev and the Soviet snipers wore down the vaunted German infantry. Regrettably, the duel between Zaitsev and Koenig seemed to be taking region in a separate reality than the war itself, almost giving the impression that both sides had an unwritten agreement to let the two rivals shoot it out without interference. Also, the abrupt ending gave no explanation as to how the Red Army, seemingly on the ropes throughout the movie, suddenly emerged victorious. It would not have taken distinguished film time to define how this came about: the tenacity of Stalingrad�s defenders drew the mechanized German forces into costly city fighting, allowing the Red Army�s distinguished reserves massed to the north and south to punch through the feeble Axis flanks and encircle the Germans. Saving Private Ryan succeeded in telling considerable of the myth of the Normandy invasion in a intention that neatly complimented the movie�s set. I wish that Enemy at the Gates had made more of a similar misfortune.
I know that �dramatic license� is a fact of life with historical movies, but it is scheme overdone in this one. The opening sequence of the Volga crossing is worthy filmmaking and is mostly apt up until Zaitsev and his fellow soldiers enter the city. The following section about only every other man receiving a weapon and being sent of in a suicide charge is purely the stuff of anecdote, though, more fitting of the WWI Russian Army or a Soviet punishment battalion. The reality was that the Red Army in Stalingrad fought mostly in cramped detachments armed with submachine guns rather than rifles, interesting stealthily amongst the rubble and ambushing the Germans in brutal house-to-house fighting. This sort of close-quarter combat, where the front lines were often separated by less than 20 yards (or even a mere hallway or staircase), would have played out on hide fair as well (better, in fact) as the �charge of the Red horde� that is the stuff of well-liked imagination rather than upright history. The conclusion of this scene is misleading, as well. The Soviets did shoot many deserters who attempted to fly the front lines, but this degree of harshness did not apply to survivors of a failed attack as shown in the film. The commanders of the Red Army were often brutal towards their men, but not quite that brutal. As for the draw the sniper duel is finally brought to a terminate, with Koenig walking correct in dull understanding towards what he suspects is the site where he has impartial shot Zaitsev tiring,, it is honest ridiculous. Not even a rookie sniper would have made such a fatal error, mighty less an instructor.
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The Soviet characters all part the names of loyal people, but none are apt to their real-world counterparts. Vassili Zaitsev was more of a natural leader than the movie gives him credit for, not objective a petrified boy from the Urals reluctantly pushed into the limelight. Danilov, the political officer, appears to have been crafted by the screenwriters almost solely in order to do a faddish sparkling statement about the pitfalls of Communist idealism. The sincere Danilov was shot (though not fatally) when he foolishly stood up to point out Major Koenig�s set to Zaitsev, not in an act of suicide. Tania Chernova�s on-screen character was the furthest from reality, though. She was actually a short, short-tempered blonde who had previously fought as a partisan in Byelorussia and the Ukraine. A customary killer by the time she arrived in Stalingrad and possessing a single-minded hatred of the Germans, the real-life Tania could hardly have been more different from the sensitive student/soldier who never actually fires her rifle once throughout the whole film. Also, Chernova was likely Ukrainian, not Jewish (only worth noting because of the widespread record that most Ukrainians welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Soviet rule) . Ironically, the character that seemed truest to reality was Major Koenig, a murky figure who some historians claim might never have existed.
Though I stale most of the position here to criticize this movie, I guess the fact that I bought the DVD means that I nonetheless enjoyed it. I probably would have rated it better were I not such a Russian history buff. Do yourself a favor and steal the time to read both _Enemy at the Gates_, by William Craig (a very readable non-fiction sage of the whole Stalingrad campaign) and _War of the Rats_, by David Robbins (a novelized version of the sniper duel that is both a better yarn and closer to historical fact than this movie was) . My main regret is that the film�s potential was largely squandered to create room for unneeded political rhetoric and melodrama. I only hope that its mediocre performance will not discourage film producers from backing other Russian Front projects in the future.
After many major Hollywood epics about the war on the Western Front (THE LONGEST DAY, PATTON, A BRIDGE TOO FAR, BATTLE OF THE BULGE, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN), it is long overdue that ENEMY AT THE GATES, centered on the pivotal battle for Stalingrad, should play to audiences … particularly American audiences.
The core of the area is the personal duel between two expert snipers, the Red Army’s Vasily Zaitsev (Jude Law) and the German Wehrmacht major, Koenig (Ed Harris), the latter brought into the Stalingrad cauldron to destroy the weak before he totally destroys the morale of the German troops trying to rob the city. It’s a cat and mouse confrontation depicted with startling realism, though, in this case, the mouse is honest as deadly as the cat. The rest of the film is unprejudiced window dressing, especially the sappy appreciate triangle between Zaitsev, political commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), and a female Red Army sniper, Tania, played by Rachel Weisz.
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The film, status among the rubble and destroyed factories of Stalin’s city, is visually graceful. The performances of Law, Harris and Fiennes are obliging, as is that by Bob Hoskins, who plays Joe Stalin’s political representative on the scene, Nikita Krushchev. My complaints center on the accents of the main characters, which don’t sound Russian by any stretch of the imagination, the previously-mentioned and totally superfluous admire epic, and the fact that the Krushchev is given blueprint too grand cloak time at the expense of the Russian general, Chuikov, who doesn’t even appear, even though he was the Red Army’s military commander whose gritty defense of the city ultimately prevailed.
This legend of the duel between Zaitsev and his German nemesis is based in fact, though a better telling of the myth is the work of book fiction, WAR OF THE RATS, by David Robbins. If you’re eager in this footnote to the Stalingrad struggle, the book is a “must”, and the film will wait on as helpful visual reinforcement.
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