Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Stalingrad (1992)
Director: Joseph Vilsmaier
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Director/cinematographer Vilsmaier's WWII chronicle is a convincingly hard-edged movie, contextualising subtitles to the fore, detailing the most fateful hours of the European conflict. But, impressive as a monument of reconstruction, the film lacks the extra emotive dimension which would fulfil its humanist aspirations. Instead, surrounded by production values which suggest the Russian city has been demolished anew, the sentiments are very much of the war-is-hell and all-officers-are-bastards school, as a group of German soldiers is whittled away one by one during the ill-fated 1942 Siege of Stalingrad. With efficient performances that leave the big statements to the action set-pieces and a screenplay which merely hints at exorcising Nazi culpability in a single evasive exchange, the film's enveloping veracity is its most striking aspect. You'll certainly feel you've been to the Russian front - a fact which, ironically perhaps, may endear the film more to genre buffs and Sven Hassel readers than the youthful generation for whom the monolithic display of carnage is obviously intended as a bitter warning.Author: TJ
Cast & crew
Director: Joseph Vilsmaier
Producer: Joseph Vilsmaier, Hanno Huth, Günther Rohrbach
Cast: Dominique Horwitz, Thomas Kretschmann, Jochen Nickel, Sebastian Rudolph, Dana Vavrova, Martin Benrath full cast
Genre(s): War
Duration: 138 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now