Good, though an incomplete statement

Rating: 7/10 (26 November 2000)

This movie was well-done in achieving its apparent aim of showing how horrible the conditions were for the Germans in the battle of Stalingrad, and in the Russian winter in general.
My problem with this movie is that I think it wanted me to be sympathetic to the suffering of the German soldiers, but my knowledge of what they were fighting for prevented that. There is one scene where a soldier, Otto, heaps abuse on a general, who says "I am not a Nazi". Otto comments that it is perhaps worse that they, the generals, could see that Hitler is a madman and yet they dutifully support him, i.e. the sane must stand up to insanity. I think that reflects my feeling towards these characters: At some point you have to look at what you are doing and say "this isn't right", or "why am I going into someone else's house to kill them", though I know that certainly wasn't part of the German military culture, particularly under a Fascist regime, and certainly more difficult for the foot soldier to do. I have more sympathy for the youngest German soldiers, who might not have the maturity to pose such questions to themselves. I think the movie has value, therefore, in demonstrating the feeling of waste and pointlessness if you DON'T ask yourself questions about why you are killing. By not asking themselves the right questions about their invasion, they got death without any feeling of nobility in their cause.
I think my feeling towards the German soldiers in this movie were different than, say, "All Quiet on the Western Front" because of who and what they were fighting for. Yes, Germans invaded France in WWI, and as invaders they also got what they deserved, but the nature of the cause would have been harder for the soldiers to determine, and thus answering their own question about why they did it more difficult. In "AQotWF", it was very clearly a nebulous cause, somewhat like Vietnam in that sense, but Germans in WWII had a clearer idea of who and what they were fighting for, and thus deserve less sympathy.
For such a long movie that looked at things from the point of the average soldier, I would have liked to have seen the exploration of these issues, perhaps by drawing the characters and plot a little better. For the most part in this movie, we just watch the soldiers suffer in various ways. This does have value is showing what war is, however.
Now, when are we going to get a good movie that tells things from the Russian point of view? After all, they suffered the greatest losses (20 million dead on their own territory), which was all but invisible in this story. The Russians were also the ones who smashed most of Hitler's forces, and without whom the other Allies would never have succeeded (fortunately for all of us, Hitler went against the advice of his General Staff and started Barbarosa too late in the year, so the Russians were "lucky" in that respect). Now that the Cold War is over, I hope it's realistic to see a movie made that gives them the appreciation they deserve.