Truth comes knocking

Rating: 8/10 (31 July 2013)

Although Jean-Jacques Annaud's "Enemy at the Gates" is an exciting and visually stunning film, you have to wonder how much of it was based on fact.
Particularly those scenes of the Russian reinforcements heading towards Stalingrad under withering fire from the Germans, driven forward by maniacal commissars and an intense James Horner score. They make a hopeless attack on the Germans although many are unarmed. When the survivors fall back, they are cut down by their own machine guns because they failed to obey Stalin's order of no retreat. You might be forgiven for thinking that those machine guns would have been more useful further forward facing the Germans instead.
It seems that the Russians embraced "Enemy at the Gates" in 2001 about as warmly as the French embraced Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" in 1958.
It doesn't take much Googling to discover that the film received a deluge of complaints from men and women who had fought at Stalingrad. The veterans were upset that Soviet soldiers were portrayed as unthinking executors of the orders of their officers and viewed simply as cannon fodder; one group wanted it banned in Russia.
Recent histories by Anthony Beevor and Max Hastings acknowledge that the Red Army did not shrink from executing its own men, but they also chronicled that many Russian soldiers displayed great courage, skill, and esprit de corps. Most records of the battle of Stalingrad make the point that, formidable as the Germans were, the Russians eventually outperformed them in the street fighting – only well-led and self-reliant soldiers could have achieved that.
Over-emphasising certain elements at the expense of others left Annaud open to the charge that he had pandered to stereotypical views as to what motivated Russian soldiers to fight in WW2. But to be fair, Annaud didn't make a blow-by-blow account of the Battle of Stalingrad, he made an interesting, technically brilliant movie, which has an absorbing duel at its centre, and although a number of the characters are based on fact others are fictional.
The film tells the story of Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), who becomes a famous sniper during the battle. A political officer, Commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), recognises his potential as a propaganda tool. As his fame grows, the Germans send their own super-sniper, Major Konig (Ed Harris), to eliminate him. They play out their duel in the ruins of Stalingrad.
Among other characters, is Tania Chernova a female soldier played by Rachel Weisz who brightens her drab military look with beautifully applied eyebrow liner and glossy red lipstick – running the risk of drawing too much attention in the trenches, and not just from the Germans.
Sacha Filipov is a boy who befriends not only Zaitsev but also Major Konig. Of all the characters, Sacha is the most difficult to accept. He exists in the film like the boy next door – to both sides. He is involved in plans and actions that stretch credulity. He also has a perfect English accent, as do many of the actors who play Russians. I found this aspect took some getting used to with my ears finely attuned to at least six decades of Hollywood Russian accents along the lines of Boris and Natasha from the "Rocky and Bullwinkle Show". Bob Hoskins, who plays Nikita Khrushchev, adopts an accent that seems more seamless and Ed Harris's American accent is altogether less jarring.
For those who appreciate the influence movies can have on people's perception of history, the film does pose a few awkward questions. However, one Russian observer, aware of the dissatisfaction of his country's veterans, nonetheless thought the movie shouldn't be banned because it still showed that they had won in the end, and that was the most important thing.