Enemy at the Gates (2001)
Jean-Jacques Annaud
Germany, USA, UK, Ireland
131 mins, color, English
Bullshit Yankee propaganda. It is amazing that it took four countries, and two script writers, to produce this crap that pretends to be a film. The big question: what was the damn point? Ok, so we know war was brutal but this cheap melodrama reaches nowhere near the impact of STALINGRAD. We also know that the Russian had the punitive brigades (every army has them), but the movie seems to say that they were the only reason Russians fought (oh yeah, one Jewish chick fought because the Nazis had drowned her parents). That, obviously, is such unbelievable lie that one cannot forgive the film-makers even if they did graduate from grade school. Ok, maybe there was a love story, but they HAD to get the loving couple to fuck right in the middle of a room full of nasty Russians. Maybe there was a point to this, but it was lost on me.
Yeah, and Stalingrad was a personal battle between Vassily (Jude Law) and Koenig (Ed Harris). Sure, the story about the sharp-shooters is true, but it was nowhere near the epic battle portrayed in the movie. Sure, the political commissars were a useless and dangerous bunch, but what happened to the letter that Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) wrote? It should have landed Vassily in a Gulag at best. Naturally, this being an American movie, Vassily ended with the somewhat pretty Tania (Rachel Weisz) instead. There was only one true hero in this film and he ended up dangling from a lamp post.
Pop Quiz. Fiennes committed suicide by proxy because he had realized that: (a) communism, when it came, would not make him prettier; (b) Stalin loved Vassili more; (c) he had picked the worst part ever and wanted to get the hell out; (d) all of the above.
I really think the point should be driven home. If you want to see something closer to what Stalingrad appears to have been, watch "Stalingrad." The Russians fought bravely, selflessly, and heroically, and they accomplished what was militarily impossible: held the superior German army until Zhukov could complete the encirclement. Was that because they waved red flags with the hammer and sickle and pathetically killed every soldier that was trying to hide from the bullets? Was that because they had better sharp-shooters than the Germans (what good were those against tanks)? Was that because the bust of Lenin in the department store could survive even a direct nuclear hit? Or because Russian women always put makeup on before going to battle? Or because Khrushchev bulled everyone into praying to the (awful) portrait of Stalin? Or because the political commissars persuaded everyone to fight for Stalin and communism? Blah. Such incredible bullshit, it's inevitable Americans will eat it up. The movie makers did not even have the decency to spare us the direct lame anti-communist spiel.
The truth is down to Earth. The Russians did not fight for Stalin or the Party. In fact, the top Russian brass found out fairly early in the beginning of the war that they could not motivate the army that way. Instead, they switched to "For the Motherland!" song, which worked much better. World War II is still called "The Great Patriotic War," which it truly was. On top of that, the Germans really helped by being murderous and barbarous in the extreme. For most Russians, the war turned into a simple act of revenge and payback. With almost every family losing one or more members to the war, it wasn't hard to hate the Germans. It was a combination of hate, patriotism, and fear that drove the Russians. Even the commissars knew that. But not the movie makers.
What pissed me off completely is exactly this. There's not an inkling of the heroism and courage shown by the Russian defenders. Badly outnumbered, pummelled by tanks and artillery, and without a hope for reinforcement (Zhukov would not even tell Chuikov about the plans for strategic encirclement), the Russians fought doggedly not for every building, but for every room on every floor of every building. The Germans were no match for that self-sacrifice. If you look at the sheer numbers involved in this battle, the fact that the Russians held the city defies military odds and is staggering. When Paulus' VI Army was finally trapped, there were 330,000 German soldiers left, by the time they surrendered, there were 90,000 left (of which 50,000 died of typhus, and about 35,000 died in transit, or in exile; only 5,000 saw Germany again). Against this mass of soldiers armed with tanks, artillery, and what not, Chuikov had at one point 19 tanks left. And he held. Tell that to the idiots of movie-makers. Shame on these ignorant propagandists.
Given how many Americans "learn" history from the movies, it is not a far-fetched conclusion that most will come away with an extremely distorted view of World War II (which, by the way, most of them have anyway---judging by classes I've taken, and people I've talked to, most Americans seem to think that WWII is all about the Pacific theater, which was really a sideshow compared to the Eastern Front). Pathetic, dangerous, and misleading. One would do better to read some history (the illustrated "Stalingrad: The Turning Point" by Geoffrey Jukes can be a good start: it is short, engaging, and truthful).
This movie, unlike the real Battle of Stalingrad, went to the dunghill of history before I could scream "Refund!" The verdict? The French film like they fight: as pussies. The British act as they shit: with British accents. The Americans finance like they date: indiscriminately and without imagination. The Irish... what DID they do for this film? Supply potatoes? And the Germans? Oh well, they lost the war, what more do you want.
Avoid this crap like the plague. You might get rabies just by looking at the poster. No self-respecting half-wit would give this excrement more than 1 point (on a very long scale).
March 25, 2001. BLS