don't expect history, it's all about the men

Rating: 6/10 (28 November 2008)

This movie is very uneven. It seems Peckinpah was unable to decide whether to shoot a metaphysical "deep" movie, for which the entire "Eastern Front affair" would only be a pretext, or a more reflexive war movie. To some extent, he approached the same junction later found by the makers of "Stalingrad;" while both movies serve very well as proof of the "war is madness" thesis, they tend too much toward the sub-conscious, unrealized, sub-real. This movie tells the story of Corporal/Sergeant Steiner, a "living legend" of the German reconaissance, bearer of a lower-class Iron Cross. One day, he is given a new superior, Cpt. Stransky, a Prussian aristocrat who volunteered for the Eastern Front and got reassigned from Paris. Stransky isn't much of an officer, besides, he has never been to the East and so isn't accustomed to the kind of war waged there (much different from the Western, clockwork a-country-a-month warfare conducted on France in the 1940). Yet, he's focused on a single goal - to get his own Iron Cross. Soon enough, the German trenches are attacked by a huge Russian force and survive mainly through the heroism of a few brave officers - mainly Lt. Meyer, who dies in combat. Eager to get it over with (and probably expecting no further chances), Stransky decides to act on it and claim the Cross for conducting of a counterattack (Meyer's doing). However, he needs two witnesses - and one of them is, by necessity, Steiner. What practically rips the movie apart is a set of scenes which seem more like delusions or manic dreams than reality. While the hospital scenes, placed as they are just after the aforementioned battle (in which Steiner got wounded) are intelligible, some similar scenes in the latter part of the movie aren't. I still haven't found any movie which would successfully resolve the realistic-metaphysical paradox, this one hits still too far from home. Other unrewarding aspects of "Cross of Iron" are the many mistakes, the roles played by Mason and Schell (bordering on self-parody, time and again reminiscent of Altman's "M.A.S.H.") and questionable realism of front changes and battle occurrences (like a single plane bombing without an assault to follow or a cannon bombardment laced directly on German positions yet seemingly leaving the Germans untroubled). I guess Peckinpah managed to touch upon the nightmares of the WW2 Eastern Front, yet in general, it's far from ideal. As for the metaphysical aspect of the movie, it leaves the viewer a bit confounded. I, for one, don't know, which parts of the movie are imagined and which are "real." Perhaps it's all a dream and Steiner spent the whole movie in hospital... I'm giving it six stars, because it's worth viewing just as much as "Stalingrad." Other than that, it's a tough movie, unsympathetic, demanding, unrewarding. A typical Peckinpah? Not really, no. I wouldn't name it as the late master's masterpiece, yet it does bear his mark (outside the bloody slo-mo sections).