In light of the current tensions involving Russia and
Ukraine, a movie about the Soviet defense of Stalingrad in 1942 provides some
relevant instruction in some of the history of that nation and its attitudes
toward the rest of Europe. Most viewers probably know little or nothing of the
suffering the Russians endured in what they call, with some justification, the
Great Patriotic War. They claim to have lost 27 million lives in World War II,
more than all the other combatants combined, in the conflict that began when
Hitler betrayed Stalin’s cozy agreement in their non-aggression pact.
The greatest battle of that war, the subject of several books
and movies, most memorably 2001’s “Enemy at the Gates,” was the protracted,
vicious fight for the city of Stalingrad, a place of both strategic and
symbolic importance. The German army had bombed the city to rubble, which
caused the Soviets to evacuate most of the civilians, leaving in desperation a
token, vulnerable population so that their forces would realize they were
defending people, not simply ruins.
“Stalingrad” begins oddly, in Japan, showing the
international rescue mission in the aftermath of the great tsunami and
earthquake that struck the coast in 2011. A Russian physician speaks to a young
German girl trapped in the rubble, soothing her with the tale of his mother’s
experience in the battle of Stalingrad. He tells her he had five fathers, the
handful of military men trapped in a building protecting his mother Katya (MariyaSmolnikova), a 19-year old
survivor, who, like all of the men, had lost her family to the war.
Once establishing that situation, the movie alternates between
the Russian soldiers and the Wehrmacht unit opposing them, cutting back and
forth between the two sides and their separate strategies. It also alternates
between the two major male characters, the Russian KapitanGromov (PyotrFyodorov) and the German KapitanKan (Thomas Kretschmann). Like Gromov, Kan also tries to protect
a woman, a Russian civilian named Masha (YaninaStudilina), thus nicely balancing personalities, motives,
and actions.
The many battle sequences between the two groups display the
ferocity of the attacks and the desperation of the defenders. Outgunned and
outmanned, the Russians improvise a number of strategies to withstand the
repeated German assaults. They salvage machine guns and ammunition from a
wrecked Luftwaffe airplane, fire their one cannon shell so that it bounces off
a disabled tank and hits the enemy headquarters, set an ambush hiding under the
bodies of German soldiers, etc.
Aside from showing the gallant and pathetic efforts of the
defenders to help and protect Katya, the director also focuses on the character
of KapitanKan, distressed
by the slaughter he conducts, sickened by his brutal
colonel’s deliberate murder of a Russian civilian and her child, and, despite
his orders and training, in love with Masha. Threatened by his commander with execution
if he cannot capture the Russians’ building, he shares some of his enemies’
desperation.
Like many war movies, “Stalingrad” mixes its human stories
with numerous battle scenes, showing not only the usual gunfights, grenade
explosions, and cannon fire, but also a good deal of
hand-to-hand fighting, with knives, bayonets, and even clubs. KapitanKan remarks on the
ferocity of the Russians, whom he considers barbarians and savages, noting that
they don’t want victory, but revenge, something he and his men cannot fully
understand.
The picture’s bloody violence against a background of rubble,
filth, and damaged statues of Lenin, no doubt reflects the reality of one of
the greatest and most important battles of World War II. Billed as the highest-grossing
Russian film of all time, it probably appeals powerfully to the people of that
nation, reminding them of a history they may have forgotten. After decades of
Socialist Realism, when Soviet art concentrated on the class struggle, the
corruption of capitalism, the evil of the bourgeoisie, and the nobility of the
proletariat, replete with images of the happy Russian worker kissing his
tractor, “Stalingrad” provides a healthy ambiguity about its subject: nobody
fights for Comrade Stalin or the eventual dictatorship of the proletariat, but
for themselves, for the city, and for Katya. Finally, like it or not, it shows
that Russians express the same sentimental patriotism of so many Americans.
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2014.
