Stalingrad Review
Mother Russia comes out with the mother of all mixed movies.
My relationship with foreign films, like my relationship with single women, is complex, ill defined, and a mixed blessing. A the same time I love them and hate them. Some movies take on a new approach that no one in our culture would ever consider and open my eyes to the perspectives of the world (Save the Green Planet). Other films go back and do something so retro cool it reminds us of how movies are supposed to be done as opposed to the inane glitz and gimmickry that is the current Hollywood norm (the Raid: Retribution, the Killer). Still others are just surreal and fun in dopey ways that delight the creative soul (City of Lost Children, Man Bites Dog, Delicatessen).
On the other side of the coin are movies that are just bad imitations of the Hollywood aesthetic and would have been better done (or not done) here in the US (The Warrior’s Way (<–one of my first reviews. See if I have evolved as a reviewer!)). The weird thing is Stalingrad manages to be both the good kind and bad kind of foreign movie at the same time.
On the good, you will never see a war movie like this come out of a Western studio. In our movies the heroes are always better trained, armed, equipped, and motivated than whatever unwashed rabble they are sent against. Even in the rare circumstances where a group of soldiers is cut off from support and grossly outnumbered they are still able to kill dozens of enemies for each one of theirs killed (Black Hawk Down, Lone Survivor, Saving Private Ryan). The best ones are where the enemies are not even human and can be mowed down with impunity.
In this film, at least for the first half, the story follows the reality of the Battle of Stalingrad in that the Wehrmacht is better equipped, trained, and tactical. Hundreds of Russian soldier die horribly in the first ten minutes in ways that make the Normandy assault scene from Saving Private Ryan look like a drive to your local mall. There is no glory in this film; the war is presented as horrible and awful as possible.
Unfortunately once the first 30 minutes are done the director starts channeling Hollywood, letting five guys take on the entire German army and hold them off. Once the stage is set the clear influence of Hollywood infects this film like a plague; super soldiers mowing down Germans left and right, two romance stories, and a villain so cartoonishly evil that they could have substituted Snidely Whiplash and I don’t think I would have noticed a difference. Then in the last 10 minutes the film stops being Hollywood and turns into the grim Russian war movie I was expecting to see the whole time.
So you understand my difficulty in reviewing this film. I would like to bitch about a very poor directing choice however. The movie rips off Saving Private Ryan almost completely including the flashback framing device. However in Private Ryan it made total sense and gave us an awesome reveal and in this film it was one of the most worthless and unnecessary devices I have seen in film in a long time. The whole movie starts off in Japanese and is about the rescue workers trying to save people after the big tsunami. I spent the first ten minutes not sure I was even in the right theater and if it hadn’t been for the Cyrillic lettering on the screen would have gotten up to check the marque and bitch to the theater manager. Then the actual movie starts and you more or less forget about it until the last five minutes when it returns with a vengeance and drops you out of the story with the abruptness of falling into a punji lined tiger trap.
By the way, it is my belief that you can often tell what the interests and fetishes of director are by what he or she keeps showing on the screen and it is apparent that director Fedor Bondarchuk has a thing for human beings being burned alive. That is pretty much what is shown for like the first half of the film (or so it seemed). Also since IMDB doesn’t have any photos for most of these actors I will have to skip my usual habit of identifying each one after mentioning their character. Honestly I couldn’t tell most of them apart during the film anyway and most of them don’t have any other credits. My apologies.
The movie starts off with foreign rescue workers volunteering to help in Japan. A Russian crew finds five teenagers trapped under rubble and the one guy who can speak German starts talking to them to keep them calm. He tells the girl that he had five fathers and once she questions that he launches into telling the story of his mother and five fathers at the battle of Stalingrad.
(Incidentally I found it more than a little weird that in order to calm down a hysterical German girl this guy is going to tell a story of horror and war wherein tens of thousands of Germans were killed or captured, only to be worked to death in Soviet prison camps. Of the 170,000 Germans in Stalingrad eventually only about 5,000 came home. Would you tell a trapped Native American stories about how your grandfather was an American soldier on the Trail of Tears? How about next time you tell a story about a little dog you had as a kid?)
Then the real movie starts with the Red Army advancing across the Volga. Their target seems to be three giant fuel depots and in order to keep them from falling into German hands the captain in charge orders them blown up. This causes most of the assault force to catch on fire but due to their strength of the Russian character still charge forward into the face of German machine guns while on fire (kind of dopey, and if this had been an American film I think I would have been rolling my eyes at that one. The Spirit of the Russian Soldier is a drum that gets beaten pretty regularly in this film. The Hammer and Sickle image is off of one of our funny political t shirts BTW).
Anyway, after getting their assault force obliterated five assorted soldiers and sailors take a building near the river. They are ordered to hold it at all costs. In the building lives Katya, a young girl who was abused by the Germans. She refuses to leave her home and hangs out with the soldiers. Meanwhile across the courtyard the Germans need to take the building and the captain is charged by his laughable evil colonel to do so.
There is a humanizing sub plot for the German captain where he loves a hot Russian girl but honestly that’s the rest of the story in a nutshell. The Germans attack, the Russians beat them back. The Germans set fire to Russian civilians. The five soldiers all come to love and care for Katya and one in particular may or may not have slept with her (little vague on this point). Meanwhile the German captain is obsessed with capturing the building while the colonel breathes down his neck and he does what he can to save Masha, his girl. I’m not going to spoil this one but remember this film is Russian so if you were looking for a happy ending skip on to the next movie.
The stars:
WWII movie. One star. It was nice to see something from the Eastern Front. Most Americans assume we won WWII but in truth it was the Russians who did all the heavy lifting and lost 20,000,000 people doing it. The main motivation for invading Europe from the West was to keep Russia from taking over all of it. One star. I liked the different approach to war films. It was a true team effort and the grimness of the Russians in the face of the better equipped and trained Germans was cool. One star. I actually really like the ending. Not all heroes have to ride off into the sunset with the girl on their arm. One star. Aside from the charge of the Burning Men (haw! That joke is way funnier if you live in the Bay Area) most of the action was cool and well done. One star. If you ever want to see how grim warfare can be, especially in an urban environment, this is the one for you (unless you saw Enemy at the Gates). One star. I liked the humanization of the German captain, and the effort to show that decency can exist in even the worst conditions. One star. In general a decent film. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes:
The flashback framing device was kind of idiotic, as well as derivative and completely unnecessary. It felt like we were watching two different movies. One black hole. I’m never a fan of villains who are evil just for evils sake. It makes them comical. One black hole. The Hollywoodification of this film was greatly to its detriment IMO. One black hole. The 3D and IMAX added nothing except for a motivation to write in some dumb crap in order to showcase it. Special effects should be used to enhance a story, not motivate it. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So a grand total of four stars. A better than average score but on the B- side of the bell curve. It could have been a lot better. Worth seeing? It’s certainly a better WWII movie than Monuments Men, which should say something to studios who let actors pleasure themselves on the studio dime. I’d say yes, it’s worth seeing. It’s a pretty solid R and fairly brutal so no kids and probably no date. A romance in a film doesn’t add much to your dates enjoyment when most of the cast ends up dead. Bathroom break? That’s pretty easy. The scene where the five Russians throw a birthday party for Katya could be missed entirely, although in a perfect world you would have been able to skip the opening and closing bookends.
Thanks for reading. If the girl I’m supposed to hang out with tonight blows me off (a good likelihood in my experience) I will go see Son of God (that sentence taken out of context looks a little weird) although there is a big piece of me that is dreading it. Look for that review (plus more bitching about my dating life) tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Mostly I just post new reviews plus the series I am doing on Star Trek, although the other day I found a couple of funny photos. If you have a comment on this film or my review scroll down and leave it here. Also my SEO guy says I need more Facebook likes so click the little button on the top right. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Thanks again and have a great night.
Dave
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