A vivid portrayal of an aspect of WW2 rarely seen in western movies

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2005)

This move is not for the squeamish. It portrays the horrors of war very explicitly. It is in my experience quite a rare one too. I've never seen a WW2 film from the Russian side before and was worth watching for that alone. One is left with the distinct impression that Russian soldiers were just as likely to be killed by their own army as the Germans. It is well known that the Soviet army suffered the heaviest losses in WW2 but in seeing this movie, especially the opening scenes, one cannot wonder at it when you see unarmed infantry being sent into enemy fire under orders to pick up a weapon when an armed comrade is killed. For them it must have been worse than 'going over the top' in WW1! The sheer callousness of the Stalin regime is brought out very strongly in this film. Mosty of the film of course was about the snipers. That was very vividly portrayed with lots of tension without losing pace even though it included a story of love and jealousy between two of the key characters. On the whole it was an excellent film that held me to my seat more so than anything I've seen in a long time.