Another historical misconception from Hollywood to demonize Communism.

Rating: 4/10 (8 July 2010)

I may say, for those who just want to get entertainment and see a war movie, this will do fine, it is good enough for a nice evening.
For those seeking the historical truth, this movie is an outrageous shame, constantly trying to divert the attentions to facts that really didn't matter at all, if we do a transparent analysis.
The Director spent all his time worried about demonizing the Russians and Stalinism, rather than demonizing the true villains (germans) and emphasizing the glorious role of the red army at world war II. If the Germans had passed Stalingrad, they would hit the Caucasus petroleum fields paralyzing the Russians, and the result would probably be the victory of Nazism, and we wouldn't probably be here today. Besides, not a single fact about Stalingrad's importance was shown. Do you know that 2 million Russians died on this battle alone, Mr Director? (That number is, by itself, 4 times bigger than the number of American casualties in the whole Western front). And let's just not refer that 25 million Russians were killed, close to 80% of the total WWII casualties!
But hell no Mr Director, it doesn't matter that the invaders were the Germans, it doesn't matter the brutal massacre of the Soviet people by the Nazis, it doesn't matter the heroic role at Stalingrad that probably saved the whole world. Those facts don't matter! Yeah, let's just show instead how the Russians were brutal and how the Russians forced and killed their own soldiers, because Communism is bad! Such an effort was made to highlight "the Communist assassins", "forcing and killing their own soldiers", that it becomes a ridiculous shame:
1) First of all, this turns out to be historically FALSE. All records show that all Russians showed a tremendous will to fight, and they were not forced. Women, elders, crippled, everybody wanted to fight! There are German diary's telling how they were impressed by the Russian resistance, and numerous reports of heroic civilians. But NO, NO, NO. The Russians just won the war by throwing people in like meat.
2) Second, Killing deserters? Where is the surprise of this Mr Director? Americans did it. Canadians did it. Frenchmen did it... Everybody did it, you know why? IT'S WAR! And we are talking about the most ferocious battle in the history of mankind! Oh, but I guess it is so easy to criticize acts like this when we are sited in a big comfortable Hollywood chair smoking a Cuban cigar ...
And not only giving this false image about the Russians turned to be a big lie in this movie, but also the description of the battle. Let me explain this to you, Mr. Director ... This was the most atrocious, merciless human fighting ever. Still, you found time for a romance between a pretty boy and a pretty girl, for a hot shot Hollywood stardom for the main character, and in between some lovely chats with lovely families, inside some lovely Russian houses. In true Stalingrad, this just didn't happened. We are talking about a city in constant street to street fighting, both sides desperately trying to control every possible inch. We are talking about hunger, about sleeping half awake fearing a stab, about temperatures decreasing to -50 degrees, about constant ambushes, constant shooting. This movie doesn't show 20% of the true image of the battle.
In conclusion: Mr Director: you may hate communism, you may hate Russians, OK, everybody has its own ideology. But you know what? Histoy is history. Distorting the truth is very, very serious, especially to the people of Russia, that have reasons to feel outraged by this. But hey, how am I surprised? After all,this is an American movie.