La nieve ardiente

To all those folks who know about battle of Stalingrad from the Beevor's books and movie "Enemy at the Gates" this movie is must. The person who wrote the screenplay himself was artillery officer and participated in the same exact battle this movie depicts. Therefore it very likely that despite of the several shortcomings (like participation of Tiger tanks in the battle) and a little bit of propaganda (like appearance of the political commissar who, unlike stern and often unfair general, always acts humanly) the movie shows the battle the way he saw it himself. As a side note: some primitive people don't understand what the word "propaganda" means and how it works and therefore claim that every Soviet movie is a lie. I am sorry for you.

Hi !

This film title means "Burning snow" and this is a story of Soviet artillery soldiers who broke German tank divisions' rescue operation for besieged German army in Stalingrad, on account of their own lives.

This is a rare purely combat-focused Soviet film where Stalin and top red army generals are never appeared. Even the commanding red army general on the spot is not named.

In such a sense, this film is a bit closer to American war film which always focused on ordinary individual soldiers. Also camera work on this film is excellent and piling up the scenes to the climax of battle.

Also actor Boris Tokarev showed his excellent play on his roll of Lieutenant Kuznezov and he symbolized feeling of sadness of war without such words from his mouth.

I believe that Boris Tokarev was one of the most favourite soviet actor specially by young females during 1970s.

Searchanddestroy-1 and Aylmer and Theo Robertson and OzMovieWatcher, you are completely wrong because you don't know anything at all, firstly, the detachments in the film is good for its time and despite problems with sound during gun recoil and plywood of some tanks, the film is very the battle scenes are well staged, the sound, editing and decoration, the fact that the film shows heroically detachments, there is nothing wrong with that, they often participated in battles and showed themselves worthy there, although the film embellishes them from a pro-Soviet position, but evenly also, some enemy at the gate, on the contrary, falsely demonizes them, presenting an anti-Soviet position, and although the film really has little dramaturgy compared to other Soviet films, it is still present, although the film itself probably was not intended so, it is also incorrect to compare it with the film Stalingrad, it came out in 93 after the collapse of the USSR, and even after that you can remember some kind of enemy at the gates of 2002 and how Soviet soldiers are falsely shown there, and Frank Wisbar's HUNDE, WOLT IHR EWIG LEBEN, of course, is not so anti-Soviet like a doctor from Stalingrad in 1958, but in general, in terms of showing the enemy, he is no different from a Goryachiy sneg and finally, empathy is possible and necessary, since they did not have any superiority, both qualitative and quantitative, and there was no actual small saturn operation at the beginning of the German counteroffensive , the action of which takes place in the film, initially at the beginning of 1943 a large-scale operation Saturn was planned, but due to the start of the German counteroffensive it had to be canceled and then it was redone into Operation Small Saturn and was started after the events of the film and in general the story should not be based on films study.

Useless to say that this movie won't bring exactly the same show, same elements, same kind of directing that you had with German movies, even those made long years after the end of the war. Even three decades later, propaganda proceeds for Soviet industry, as in 1942. Even now, in the 2020's. I admit that the Russians fought with priceless heroism in Stalingrad, and not only, as the Nazis too, Russians have the right to emphasize on this crourage, bravery, sacrifice. They have the right and the burden to pay homage to their elders, as any country who were involved in a war. But, I persist and sign, I did not have the same feeling watching this that I had in Joesph Weismeier's STALINGRAD, the German point of view, or Frank Wisbar's HUNDE, WOLT IHR EWIG LEBEN, which did not show Russians - the enemy - as evil or idiots opponents. But this film is not the worst ever about Stalingrad battler from the Russian point of view. It is gritty, poignant, but only predictable. What else could we expect?

The acting is so poor. It seemed like there was some Soap Opera backing the war plot. Many scenes were obviously done in a sound stage. While the battle scenes appear very authentic, the acting was a let down as was the authenticity of those nice tidy c;lean uniforms worn in heavy warfare. However, several times I could see the supposed metal armor of the field guns flex when a Russian soldier would lean on it or take hold of it. Obviously plywood. When the guns fired, there was no recoil. Apart from that, battle scenes appeared authentic. The sounds of battle were repetitive and obviously the same acoustic recording played over and over. Explosive sounds were not in sync with the explosions seen.

This movie had a lot more potential and is at the lower end of Russian war movies.