07-02-2009, 04:00 AM
Esteban_cool Wrote:I can understand the anger of this guy, but I have a gut feeling that he is blinding himself because of his pride.
I don´t have proof to assure there were forced charges against the germans without weapons for everybody, but soviet commanders proved themselves rather inept during the first years of the war at repelling the invasion, and that´s a fact. And it gives room to think such foolish kind of attacks took place.
This guy criticizes the movie for the numerous historical inaccuracies and portrayal of stereotypes, with "foolish kind of attacks" being only one of them. I am not going to repeat every argument in his article. It suffices to say that the author substantiates his claims with scenes, dialogues, captions from the film.
In my opinion, the movie's greatest flaw is the primitive categorization. Every private is a part of a scared herd, every officer is pull-the-trigger-at-his-own-soldiers robot. In real life, Red Army consisted of different human beings, brave and cowardly, honorable and odious.
Every event can be depicted in multitude of shades by selectively picking facts. Indeed during GPW, Soviet generals had committed suicides, officers had shot at their own men, poorly organized attacks had taken place, and soldiers had charged with 1 rifle for 2 men. This movie's director combined all these ingredients in high concentration and cooked a dark, thick soup. Was it even mentioned in this film that battle of Stalingrad was a Russian victory? Enemy at the Gates doesn't show Katyusha and gun salvoes that buried German infantry, advancing Soviet tanks on their way to encircle Paulus's Army or the pathetic state of his surrendering men.
