Review of Stalingrad

Introduction

Enemy at the Gates, at the cinema earlier this year and released on DVD quite recently, looked at Stalingrad from the Russian point of view through Hollywood tinted lenses, not adequately dealing with the horror of a battle that cost the lives of 2,000,000 people. Stalingrad is a 1992 German movie which follows a platoon of German troops in and around Stalingrad as they fight against both the Russians and the harsh winter. The film was made by the same production team responsible for the acclaimed submarine drama Das Boot.

Video

The video is presented in non-anamorphic widescreen 1.77:1 and is of above average quality throughout. The image is slightly grainy, and not especially sharp, which is more noticeable when zoomed to fit a 16:9 screen.

There are several action sequences which are well shot, and feel much more authentic than some overly glossy Hollywood war movies. The locations are in general good, but some sets lack scale, perhaps due to budgetary considerations, the movie does not adequately explain how so many people lost their lives during the battle.

Audio

The sound comes in Dolby Digital 2.0 and is presented in dubbed English. Unfortunately there is no original German soundtrack with English subtitles for those, like myself, who prefer to watch films in their original language. Having said that, the dubbed voices are not too bad and when you get used to the resulting lip-synch problems the irritation subsides.

The are plenty of sound effects, most of which sound quite good, and there`s not to much to overly dramatise an already tense situation.

The dialogue is set at an appropriate level and is easy to understand - however the lack of subtitles in a scenes in German, for example a radio broadcast by Hitler, are a real annoyance.

Features

The extras are pretty dull - with trailers, filmographies and a picture gallery all that are on offer. A documentary about the real Stalingrad, and a making-of would have been welcome additions.

Conclusion

Enemy at the Gates didn`t do much for me because it concentrates on a love story and fails miserably to tell the story of why so many people died. Stalingrad is a much better film than Enemy at the Gates, but it`s concentration on a small platoon also ensures that it too is mediocre. The producers have done a far better job of portraying the suffering of the soldiers than Hollywood`s attempt, but the failure to look at the bigger picture resulted in the movie becoming tedious after the first hour or so, although it did pick up slightly at the end.

The performances are good across the board and the film is well made but I didn`t like the dubbed soundtrack, or having non-anamorphic video. The extras are also disappointing, however the film does carry a low £12.99 price-tag which goes some way to offset the technical shortcomings.

To summarise, Stalingrad doesn`t deliver what it promises and those hoping for a classic World War 2 movie will be disappointed.