Stalingrad

I have seen it countless times, the music gives me chills, it is so masterful and gives a feeling of hopelessness and comfort in death that awaited the German forces on the Eastern front

I saw this docu several years ago and until this day I have never seen a better documentary. Detailed reports with many survivors, Russian as well as German and even civilians who still lived in Stalingrad during this terrible battle.

The true power of this documentary are the survivors. When a certain German soldier told his story how he was able to get out of this hell on earth (wounded) he told it with so much heart and soul when he cried, I cried.

This may sound silly but it moved me in a way a docu never had done before. It puts back the Humans in the story... not just The Evil Germans or The Brave Russians (as seen in many documentaries) no it shows the human horror, the pain, the hunger the sorrow...

If you have the chance to see it DO IT... I was lucky because the Dutch TV broad casted this 3 part masterpiece. And if anybody knows where I could get in (in the Netherlands) PLEASE HELP ME OUT. I want to show parts of this when I become a teacher(2 more years of school)THNX ! And to all the survivors who worked on this: Thank you for shedding a (your) human light on this horrible war which, I see daily, many children forget or don't care about anymore, this makes a difference.

First, I'll just get a few short comings of this work out of the way.

(a) It helps if you know something about the battle before watching this documentary. You -might- feel a little lost in the bigger-picture sense without such knowledge.

(b) Those looking for an in-depth military analysis of the battle should look elsewhere. This film is brilliant in its ability to capture the experience of war, not the theory behind it. Hence, there are not a lot of maps, etc. in this movie.

(c) Sometimes the film can be a but redundant.

So, now that all of that is out of the way, on to the good stuff. What really makes this film shine is the first-person accounts by people who were actually there, and lived through it. Both ex-German and Russian soldiers are interviewed, along with Russian civilians. It is said that a soldier only really experiences war in the 1000 feet that is around him. If that is true, then this film is a horrifying, moving, and amazing account of those 1000 feet. It also abuts the historical-drama movie by the same name. The two are really worth watching in tandem. This is a bottom-up account of Stalingrad that illuminates the experiences of the common foot soldier, which is often a story not heard from the German side of things. I really feel this is "must see" for anyone with even a remote interest in WWII.

This documentary gives very good insight in the battle of Stalingrad, the gruesome city combat and the blockade of the sixth german army. However, it is not for history buffs or strategic experts, as it focuses on personal experiences and the stories of some of the last living participants in this turning point of the second world war.

Written by one of the precursors for popular history shows on german Network TV, Guido Knopp, the pattern for the three-part show is similar to his other releases: archive footage of the actual events is combined with testimonies of former soldiers or other participants of the war.

This gives the documentary a very personal note, with some of the german soldiers, now well in their eighties, bursting into tears while remembering their rescue from the encircled city. This first-hand report of the cruelties of war is what leaves viewers touched.

From what I know, this documentary is available in German only and is contained as an extra DVD to the 1993 movie "Stalingrad" by Joseph Vilsmair.

This is a conventional and limited treatment of an extraordinary subject. It is conventional in its use of film and is limited to the suffering caused by war. It is a film that deals with a battle only in a broad and almost incidental sense: Suffering is the exhaustive theme.

One film would have been adequate to see alternately survivors sat in artfully dimmed spaces emotionally and repetitively recounting suffering and footage of people on the move or killed. To make the point and lather it home we get the clichéd Volga vistas and stirring orchestral music, too.

Film should be employed innovatively (or not) to match the subject - be it suffering or the account of a siege and urban warfare. These films deal with the former blandly and little with the latter. If we are not to become inured to suffering then director's please rise to the occasion.