No One Gets Out Alive

Rating: 8/10 (18 February 2019)

You can tell this is not a Hollywood movie. It did not have a happy ending. A unit of 400 German soldiers is reduced to zero in a hopeless situation at Stalingrad (Volgagrad), Ukraine. An idealistic young officer tries to point out the injustices caused by other German officers against Russian civilians and soldiers, but the higher command accuses him of being against the war effort. They hint that the only reason he is not arrested and shot is because his father is an important person. The German soldiers go through an unimaginable hell. All die hopelessly, tragically, and painfully. It is hard for any movie to come close to the horrors of war, but this film does about as good a job as possible. It is not too long before the German soldiers discover that they will never make it back home to Germany again. There is no escape, and the winter is another harsh factor. It is hundreds of miles through barren lands that make Midwest winters look tame. The Russian soldiers and Ukrainian people are seen as victims of the war just as much.
Unlike many Hollywood movies, where there is a happy ending this movie has no consolation as every single one of the soldiers of the original 400 is doomed to die. The majority of soldiers are just ordinary folk led by fanatical and terrified officers. In the end, the powerful officers are reduced to starving, shivering animals themselves with no hope of escape. The only knock I have on this movie, because it was focused on the point of view of the German soldier, is that nothing was shown about how Communism was even worse. Stalin was a complete monster. The reason why the Russian boy who was captured is so silent is because Stalin killed any soldiers who had contact with Germans. Stalin claimed that he himself was responsible for winning the war. Stalin was just a coward who was protecting himself. It was the people who were the real winners of the war. Just to show how vile a person Stalin was. A Jewish prisoner who survived the concentration camps was arrested by the Soviets, accused of being infected by Germanism, and sent to a Siberia camp.
Still, this movie is in the tradition of realistic European films. One feels true sadness for the inhumanity of the whole war. Everyone is a victim of a mad situation where no one comes out alive. In the last scene, the last surviving soldier freezes to death in the open fields of snow and winds.