EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

cinemajesty Movie Review: "Stalingrad" (1993)Shot on exterior locations in Finland and Czech Republic in 1992 to find completion at Bavaria Filmstudios Munich for heart-striking release in January 1993 preliminary in a German theater exhibitions, "Stalingrad" directed by Jospeh Vilsmaier, at age 53, delivers with "Das Boot" (1981-1985) mimicking "World-War-2" character portrayals, led by committed German soldiers-playing actors Dominique Horwitz and Thomas Kretschmann as Fritz & Hans in constant war-action-pounding charges to an inevitable historic Farsided Eastern front of Nationalsocial-invasion into Russian territory, when in late 1943 the expanding German military turns to the worse in horrific losses, presented in highly-authentic image system out of machine gun shoot-outs, burning factory buildings, recalling the superior shot Vietnam-war-action film "Full Metal Jacket" directed by Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999); further highlighting moments of an allied tank platoon pushing to opposite-sided borders in thick snow-hazard visuals under hammer-falling sound design, when producer Hanno Huth, who also executive-produced director Peter Jackson's breakthrough into classic drama in season 1993/1994 with "Heavenly Creatures" starring Kate Winslet; the producer, who then ensures a fully-independent budget in inflation-adjusted region from ten to fifteen Million euros in today's world of 2018, when director Joseph Vilsmaier keeps the camera moving, characters clashing, a war machine turning, but leaves the devastation of a mindless-storming attempt to a treaty-defying offense in "World-War-II" transforming to hopelessly-cruel measures with no emotional relief of any kind.© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

gavin6942 A depiction of the brutal battle of Stalingrad, the Third Reich's 'high water mark', as seen through the eyes of German officer Hans von Witzland (Thomas Kretschmann) and his battalion.There is something historically and culturally significant about this film. One, as an American, history is very much taught in this country from an American point of view. That may not be a bad thing, but it leaves us with the impression that America won World War II. That is true in the general sense, but it was the Soviet Union that defeated Hitler. The Americans were much more involved with Japan. So to have films that focus on Russia during World War II is always good.But two, it is interesting to see films like this come out of Germany. You walk a fine line. Obviously, you want to be proud of your country and part of that is being proud of military victories. But, at the same time, you don't want to praise the Nazi regime or suggest that what they did was right. How you promote the bravery of soldiers without endorsing their fight is tough, but this film seems to make a serious effort at doing so.

jvdesuit1 Nearly 2am in Paris this Sunday. I've watched this movie, this morning and still cant take out of my head the views and sound. This is probably as many here say the best movie ever made on WWII.We're very far from the eternal Hollywoodian productions, with more or less happy endings, carefully edited not to shock ears or eyes with crude words or views. Joseph Vilsmaier goes straight to the facts. Even if the beginning with its views of the beaches of Italy gives an impression of gradation to the subject, we're very quickly confronted to the reality of what was to happen: young guys who would prefer to be attending their everyday life with families and friends and brought into a storm by a megalomaniac scoundrel named Hitler.The best example of this is the huge lie of the general in the scene at the beginning of the film when he states that Germany has been victorious at El Alamein!All along the movie, we can feel the sense of betrayal of the battalion and Hans. It's a huge crescendo just as the horrors of the situations lived by those men increases. Another aspect of the way the film is shot, is at the same time a terrible sense of loneliness. Progressively each character transmits to the audience this terrible feeling of being abandoned to fate and elements i.e. the climate. The director and the writer have made a fantastic analysis of the human nature and its reaction to this terrible trauma. And you cant help thinking, how would I react in such circumstances?.Joseph Vilsmaier has succeeded not to drop in the great mistake of Jean-Jacques Annaud's version of Stalingrad (Enemy at the gate) which is the relative happy ending. Whatever the facts you depict in a movie treating of this battle, there cant be a positive or happy ending for any of the protagonists. A simple figure attests of it: it is estimated that of the 100000 German POW only 5000 survived and returned to their country.This is a great movie, and each adolescent should view it to keep in its memory what the so called superiority of a nation can be driven to if by nationalistic propaganda it is driven to expansionism.This is true on any continent, whether America, Europe or Asia. History repeats itself whether we like it or not and there is always somewhere a mad man to exploit economic circumstances leading to such horrors. France and England have had a huge responsibility in the arrival of Hitler because of the stupid Versailles treaty and the way we ruined the German economy opening the gates to hatred on one side and credulity of a starving nation to the propaganda and lies of its filthy new leader in the 30s.

CosmoFelani I have wanted to watch this film for many years but only got around to it last week. Many reviewers have highlighted the fact that this is not a Hollywood treatment, which can be a positive. But for anyone who has been exposed to the realism of Saving Private Ryan and similar movies, the absence of Hollywood production values and standards of acting and realism make Stalingrad hard to take seriously. It is highly theatrical, in the sense that the acting is over the top and the motivations and actions of most of the characters do not line up with anything that I'd call realistic, in terms of what I have read about the battle itself or based on what one would consider believable human behavior. Very simplistic in all respects. Probably would have been quite OK in 1993, when it was released, but by today's standards, not something I would recommend.