Potboiler

Rating: 5/10 (14 March 2004)

-SPOILERS-
Having read the earlier comments I was not expecting an accurate portrayal of the Eastern Front. I did however expect to see a reasonably realistic portrayal of hand-to-hand fighting. However I was not prepared for the abysmal effort that I saw.
I don't believe that this could be said to be unusual for showing the Eastern Front from the Soviet perspective. There are few enough films from this theatre at all. This travesty was more from the American perspective than the Soviet.
This film was fundamentally flawed at almost every level. Unlike some reviewers, I don't believe that it is in the least bit realistic. True, it does show severed limbs, and lots of blood. But real bullets don't travel at the speed of light, nor are battles so quite and smoke-free. The tactics referred to by a previous commentator were non-existent. The battle consisted of a few set-piece infantry charges, and low-flying planes. No artillery barrages, anti-tank guns, minefields, barbed wire, or even hand-to-hand fighting. German tanks were invariably seen peacefully parked on parade.
Apparently untrained, though well-dressed, Red Army recruits arrive by train and are immediately launched into human wave attacks against Germans. They are totally unsupported, with only one rifle for two men. No artillery, no machine-guns, and no officers. They are not even supported by machine-guns: these were kept in reserve for use against the inevitably-retreating Russians. The officers led from the safety of the rear. Even the most desperate forces would have shown better tactics. The Red Army of 1942 may have been short of good leaders (due to Stalin's purges more than the war), but it was more intelligent, and better prepared, than that. In fact artillery barrages supported combined arms assaults by armies that had trained in Siberia. A much more professional affair altogether.
A Political Commissar would not have driven a car right through the front line. It was not unexpected that he became a target. The pamphlets he carried were a joke (perhaps they were meant to be?)- `No German will set foot on the soil of Stalingrad' [sic]. This was a battle right in the middle of the city! Actually the debris would have made road traffic impossible for a wheeled vehicle.
Lying against a parapet, and aiming his rifle at the enemy, the Commissar then asks a soldier lying nearby if he knows how to fire a gun- not if he is uninjured and able to fire a gun. It isn't clear whether his reluctance to himself fire stems from his arm injury, or some other cause. But it was certainly an odd question to ask an infantryman.
The softest of targets had presented itself. Not just one but several corpulent and semi-clothed Germans intent on taking a shower and generally relaxing. Such behaviour in the middle of a battle, and right on the front-line, is odd, not to say certifiable
For what was supposed to be the most vicious battle on the Eastern Front to date, the battle had an odd way of petering out. Tanks were generally static, apparently wanting to be hit by anti-tank weapons. The front itself was also relatively static. The battle seemed to rage over a couple of factories. Yet despite this, there was barely any barbed wire, and few enough soldiers to be seen most of the time. A boy wanders around the frontline, passing the non-existent mines, barbed wire, and sentries with ease.
It is unlikely that a German major would have his boots shined by a Russian boy, who crosses the front daily without papers and without questions ostensibly for that purpose. He would certainly have been stopped on the Russian side if he had been carrying German chocolate. That was not an area for civilians, particularly children.
The German Army had- and has- a proper appreciation of the role, selection and training of officers. No General would ever commission 25 sergeants in a single day. They would rather go without officers. The producer apparently doesn't know the difference between officers and men in the Wehrmacht. It is not simply a matter of the latter being promoted to fill vacancies amongst the former.
Women were not integrated into Russian army units. There were some all-women units, created more for propaganda that practical use. Red Army interpreters on radio interception would not be involved with deciphering, as was suggested. Nor would they be allowed to join infantry, particularly if a woman.
The iron-hard discipline seen at the start was apparently abandoned on the front, with people wandering in and out, and no sign or any leadership or organisation. Soldiers were apparently living where they wished. It was very quite and relaxed for the centre of a major battle.
Snipers would be organised under their own leaders. They wouldn't simply wander in and out, to be reinforced from time to time by women interpreters! And no sniper facing his greatest foe would emerge from cover and saunter across a railway-line; unless he wanted to be killed. But perhaps he did.
A Political Commissar's job is to make soldiers die for the Party, not to do it themselves. I can understand why Danilov might have wanted to die, but standing up was suicide unless the sniper was ready to spot the fire. Zaitsev was distracted by the gesture and its inevitable outcome and inevitably failed to see where the shot came from. Stupid.
A patient would not be left in hospital some weeks or months after surgery. There would be many more with more pressing need.
I could go on. Enemy at the Gates is not a good war film. It isn't a good drama, either. The characters were two dimensional. The efforts to show the German as the nasty enemy was too forced. I must say that my sympathy was with Major Konig. He was the reluctant professional, forced to do his duty though he knew he was likely to die. I liked the way he carefully put his gloves on before going out to do battle. The Russian simply enjoyed killing. He didn't even profess patriotic or Communist reasons for doing so.
If the producers thought they had captured a monumental battle between an evil Nazi and a heroic Soviet they were quite wrong.