A true story

Rating: 10/10 (19 March 2001)

I know about the World War II not only from the books. My mother was 6 years old when her village near Smolensk was occupied by Germans. Memories of mass killings, neighbor village burned along with its population, their entire village moving to live in a nearby forest, bombings, famine, decease, blood-drenched fields, hanging of a traitor, are forever imprinted in her mind. My (Jewish) father's 9-year old memories of evacuation from Kiev in one of those cars you can see in "Enemy at the Gates", being separated from his mother on the way (she stayed in one of the train stops to bury her infant son who didn't survive evacuation).
I can't take War stories just as "stories". They are my family's life. "Enemy at the Gates" from the first scenes struck me as very true to what I heard from my mother and father, what I've seen in Stalingrad' museums when I visited the city as a child.
I'm really surprised by tepid reviews this movie received. Some say it's not deep enough, others say that the romantic part of it could be left out. May be it's not very deep, but it's true. The "meat grinder" scenes, Soviet officers killing unarmed "cowards" who showed their backs to the enemy, "creation" of a hero, and love and lovemaking amidst it all: it's all true and it did happen. Somehow it's important to me that people know and remember it all. I have this stupid hope that if people know and remember, they will not let it happen again.
Obviously this is a very personal and emotional view. Watching a desperate half-armed attack of Soviet troops, I whispered to my husband "This is how your and my grandfathers were killed". Of course we'll never know if they were killed by German bullets. This film is very important to ME, because I BELIEVE that knowing my homeland history is important. Watch this movie if knowing true history is important to you. Skip it if you are fishing for entertainment, or for very deep lessons about life, or for deep and interesting character development. I'm not sure how deep comrade Zaitsev was. Maybe he was a common person put in very uncommon circumstances.
I give this movie 10 for truthfulness. In this particular case everything else is less important to me.