Set in the waning months of 1942, Stalingrad follows with nightmarish accuracy the German Sixth Army’s disastrous attempt to take the Russian port city of the title. As seen through the eyes of four German stormtroopers and their idealistic lieutenant, it’s less a strategically prepared assault than a mind- and soul-numbing exercise in carnage, random slaughter, and the futility of war. Hardly a surprising tack for the producers of Das Boot to take, but unlike Wolfgang Petersen’s 1981 submarine opus, Vilsmaier’s film is all over the map (literally), slogging through the perpetually grimy wasteland that was war-torn Russia. Rollo (Nickel), Gege (Rudolph), Otto (Groth), and Haller (Okras) are the four chief protagonists, led by their handsome, young commanding officer Hans von Witzland (Kreischman). Although each man has seen active duty previously (with the lone exception of Gege, whose innocent face is still encircled with youthful exuberance at the film’s outset, and which begins to resemble nothing so much as a corpse as the film moves inexorably forward), none of them is prepared for the crushing conditions that face them at Stalingrad. While attempting to take a pivotal factory, the Germans quickly realize that the Russian troops will fight to the death, man by man, to hold on to what appears to be an already-ruined and quite probably worthless structure. Of the thousands of men in the battalions taking the factory, only 62 survive, and that’s just in Stalingrad’s first half-hour. Historically, over 1,500,000 lives were lost during the battle, and the movie sometimes seems eager to show them all. Decidedly not a picture for weak stomachs, Vilsmaier’s film catches every blood-drenched wound, with dozens of shots of severed limbs, mangled bodies, and grandly spurting arteries. Unlike so many Americanized war films, however, Stalingrad makes no excuses for wartime atrocities; here, death is neither honorable nor memorable, simply excruciatingly painful and pointless. The men we follow are never portrayed as “Nazis”; instead, it’s their corrupt, heartless superiors who are the card-carrying party members. Lieutenant Witzland and his men are simply pawns in the game. Despite its constant stream of gore (or, perhaps, because of it), Stalingrad is a surprisingly effective anti-war film, filled with horrific images and powerful performances from all five leads. Vilsmaier likewise has a way with his camera set-ups, keeping the two-hour-and-15-minute film steadily creeping along toward its inescapable conclusion without allowing the audience time to grow restless. Not exactly Sunday morning fare, to be sure, but Stalingrad is at least the equal of such Hollywood peers as Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. If not better.
This article appears in May 10 • 1996 (Cover).