Reviews

This is a film that I keep coming back to, for a variety of reasons. As a testament to the suffering of the ordinary soldier on the Eastern Front in the Second World War, it is a powerful one. There are a number of very powerful scenes in the film which help to capture the horror of war, such as the tank battle for instance. Furthermore, from what I can see the experiences documented in the film are by and large 'true' - if you read A. Beevor's book 'Stalingrad' you will know what I mean. The film is also successful in the sense that it doesn't allow character or plot to dominate it - it is simply a tale of survival, that attempts to depict the battle mainly from the ordinary (German) soldier's point of view. I've read somewhere that the original screenplay had to be toned down, which doesn't surprise me at all - if they tried to really show what the battle was like, it would have been almost impossible to make I'm sure. Even so, there are still some moments that are difficult to watch - this was made before Private Ryan but is possibly even harder-hitting in places. Just one word of caution - don't buy the dubbed 'English' version, it's pretty awful and spoils the film - try to get a copy in the original (German) version with English subtitles, it's far more powerful. You may need to buy a Region 1 DVD of the film in this case, as I did.

This is the first time I've left a comment on this website, but I felt I had to with regard to Kubrick's Paths Of Glory; perhaps I'm being manipulated by polemical film-making, but nevertheless this is an absolutely stunning piece of cinema! From the opening to the ending, I was completely gripped by what I was watching on screen; in terms of 'you-are-there' war-reality, then the combat scenes in this film stand parallel to All Quiet On the Western Front, Stalingrad, Saving Private Ryan etc. There are echoes of Kubrick's later Full Metal Jacket at one point, and the generally anti-war, pacifist message in the film is certainly a powerful one that emotionally involves the spectator. Halliwell's Film Guide describes this as 'overpowering cinema', and I couldn't agree more; for the time this film was made, I don't think it could have been realised any more effectively! If you feel sympathy for the lot of the common man who is caught up in the madness of the war-machine, then this is a film for you! Highly recommended...