Weekend movie night: Stalingrad.

Stalingrad movie poster. Art Pictures. 

Once again, it's time for yet another movie review. This week, I'm going with an relatively obscure Russian film called Stalingrad, which is of course based on the real life battle in World War II. Not to be confused with the 1993 German film or the 2001 Hollywood film, Enemy at the gates, this is a Russian production released in 2013. I wasn't a huge fan of the film, but I figured I would write it up anyways. There will be spoilers throughout this review. 

Stalingrad isn't the worst movie I have ever seen. It isn't even the worst one based on the Battle of Stalingrad, with Enemy at the Gates being a bit worse. But it's not a good movie. It's not horrible by any means but it has one major problem. 

Everyone remembers Pearl Harbor right? The dramatic war movie that was utterly ruined by a love triangle? Well imagine that up to eleven. Instead of a love triangle this film features a love HEXAGON. That's right, there are five men all pining over the same woman. 

The basic story of Stalingrad is that a group of survivors of an ill fated assault across the Volga all end up in a building together. The five core members of the group, a dashing officer, a naive and virginal artilleryman, a mute former professional singer, a cold sniper and an older officer. They are joined by a 19 year old woman that still lives in the bombed out and destroyed building somewhat inexplicably.  

Strangely enough all of those men fall in love with the 19 year old girl. With the old man it's more of a father daughter relationship and the cold sniper just wants a woman, any woman. But the other three? They fall in love with her right away and you spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out who she is going to hook up with. She's attractive enough but it seems fairly out there that everyone falls in love with this woman over the course of a couple of days. 

This is a war movie and the fact that the last paragraph could fit in a romance drama shows the major flaw of the movie. It's about one of the most bloody and important battles in human history but instead we are focusing on a love Hexagon. 

And it's even worse than that. There is yet ANOTHER love story in Stalingrad! I'm not kidding. There is a major side story where the German officer antagonist falls in love with a Russian woman. Though the relationship does a lot to humanize the Germans in the movie but with so much focus on romance already it just drags on. 

The actual combat is good enough and the special effects are decent. And it really looks like they are fighting in a large city. But the good scenes are so disrupted by the romance that it really isn't worth it. 

The romance isn't the only problem though. I really didn't like the framing device of the movie. The opening and closing scenes are about a Russian rescue worker trying to save some children trapped in the aftermath of, presumably, the 2011 Toho Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. Now it seems unlikely to me that a Russian rescue team would be saving a bunch of German girls trapped in the ruins of a Japanese city, but that's not the real problem.

The real problem is that the children are trapped and the rescuer comforts them by telling them a story. That story? His mother, the 19 year old, and her living through the battle of Stalingrad! I don't know about you but if I was a scared little kid trapped in a collapsed building, I wouldn't want to hear a war story where hundreds of people die! It's fairly ridiculous if you ask me. 

Funny enough, Stalingrad has been dismissed as Russian propaganda. I don't know if I would go that far though. It's fairly pro-Russia yes, but it's not like they didn't show some of the warts. One man is executed for cowardice and the cold sniper shoots a woman. It's pro-Russian but that's probably going to happen with any war movie. 

Would I recommend Stalingrad? Probably not. There are war movies that are much better. Indeed, though dark and depressing, I would say that the 1993 German film with the same name was a better movie than this one. I'd skip it unless you are a completionist or someone who really wants to see a Russian war movie...