Product: Stalingrad (2003)
Rating: 4.0
Good but could have been so much better
I recommend this film, but I think it could have been better. We need maps-- Where are the landmarks-- Red Barricades. Crossing 62. The Tractor Factory. The Brickworks. The only landmark we hear of in all three hours, other than the airstrips, is "the basement of a department store." Surely the script allowed for mention of the well-known landmarks. Viewers who have read a book on Stalingrad will feel lost.The narrator tells us that the airstrips are overrun-- then later we hear of Ju-52s landing at Pitomnik and Gumrak-- So after Kalach, there are other airstrips-- where are the maps that show what's going on? And how many times do we need to hear that the airstrips were chaotic? Seems like we heard that about every five minutes throughout the last two episodes. Was the story about the four officers in white fur coats believable?-- Forcing the pilot at gunpoint to leave the 17 wounded on the ground and take off with only the four officers? What goes through a pilot's mind at that point-- how about: "If they shoot me, how are they then going to get away?" Must we hear about this one flight, and not the thousands of others? I'm sure there were better examples than that, to make whatever point the directors were trying to make-- which seems to be that the Wehrmacht officer corps were all cowards.There are other good sources on Stalingrad. Read The Forsaken Army, by Heinrich Gerlach. See the 1993 German film 'Stalingrad' first. See Pekinpah's Cross of Iron, see The Winter War (Talvisota) 1989, directed by Parikka. Also Come and See (1989), directed by Klimov. Read Willi Heinrich. Read Heinrich Böll. Read Barbarossa by Alan Clark. Read The Hinge of Fate by Winston Churchill. Read Anthony Beevor. Read The Road to Stalingrad by Benno Zieser.