Soviet Union: Enemy at the Gates

I agree with Mr. Cheshire’s general assessment that Enemy at the Gates is a “large-scale popcorn movie” –good guys, bad guys, battle scenes, blood, guts, gore, and tobacco use. But that’s about where our consensus ends. Mr. Cheshire has obviously missed the whole point of the movie. In fact, if Mr. Cheshire is going to throw accusations at his peers the likes of “faux critics” then he can start squarely with himself.

Despite Mr. Cheshire’s opinion, I don’t think Enemy at the Gates is a propaganda piece, nor is it an endorsement, tribute or celebration of Soviet communism. In fact, the film gently and tastefully conveys Soviet communism as a flawed and futile system.  During the last fifteen or twenty minutes of the film, Commissar Danilov asserts there will always be inequalities (“rich in love, poor in love”), therefore concluding that a communist utopia can never be achieved, will never exist. Earlier in the film, we see the Soviet army as badly equipped and poorly prepared; the film clearly depicts that. We observe that every other soldier is issued a weapon, with his mate to remain behind him to retrieve the weapon if the front man goes down. Desertion meant immediate, on-the-spot execution. None of these images are flattering. There is no paean to Soviet leadership in this film.

Nevertheless, the battle of Stalingrad would and did decide the fate of the world . What’s the crime in characterizing Soviet soldiers as “good guys”? The Soviet army earned that designation by holding the eastern front under brutal conditions while effectively stopping and defeating the German army. Yes, we all agree that Joseph Stalin was a vicious butcher, and an ironfisted fascist who murdered and imprisoned his citizens. However, in the winter of 1942-1943, the men and women on the ground in Stalingrad saved the world. The idiot who reviewed Enemy at the Gates fails to understand that.

Mr. Cheshire criticizes the film as insincere “Europudding” –that is to say, another quasi-pan-European project that produces insincere film. Mr. Cheshire misplaces this term, and rather clumsily. Well, it just so happens that WWII was also “Europudding.” The nationalities that collaborated on the making of Enemy at the Gates were major players in the World War: France, Germany, Britain, and America.  Go figure.

Mr. Cheshire indicates that present-day Russia might be offended by Enemy at the Gates for its apparent celebration and memorialization of Stalinism. My immediate response is who the hell are you to speak for the Russians? followed quickly by the film is not about Joseph Stalin or Soviet communism. In fact, the film featured Bob Hoskins as a screaming Nikita Khrushchev, a Premier who was notoriously anti-Stalin and responsible for initial movements toward de-Stalinization. I think the director’s point was to present a Stalin-lite, or 97% Stalin-free product thus focusing on our sniper hero and the Soviet army, thus distancing the tragedies and atrocities committed by Joseph Stalin from the audience and from the Russian people—at least for two hours—a welcome break from all the Soviet baggage, yes? Perhaps the Russians need something to be proud of, a legacy to call their own. I think they deserve it. There is enough room in the world for every hero, not just American ones.

To consider the French director’s casting of an American to play a Nazi as a vindictive  ploy is shallow, far-fetched, and silly. In fact, it is almost adolescent. Mr. Cheshire leads  his readers to believe that Ed Harris’ selection as the chisled, cold-blooded Nazi Sniper  is a deliberate, snarking thunk on the head to American audiences, but I am not persuaded. Why? Like Mr. Cheshire said “follow the money” –I seriously doubt Paramount is going to jeopardize box office returns for the sake of indulging French snit-fitting. It seems far-fetched that Paramount would allocate a multi-million dollar budget to create a venue for the French to villainize Americans and aggrandize Soviets. Is there any sense to this line of thinking?  Mr. Cheshire is pulling things out the air. He later asserts the film is reactionary (huh?). You really have to dig deep to find enough feathers to knit that duck together, if it’s even possible at all.

On another level, American film audiences, especially ones who flock to blockbuster style popcorn films, are not sophisticated animals. Subtle propaganda will simply sail over their heads. What would be the point? Remember, it is Mr. Cheshire who labeled Enemy at the Gates a popcorn movie—and I agree. Thus, who is the film’s audience? Answer: the average American who knows very little and cares very little about the French resistance, French socialism, Vichy versus DeGaulle, and everything in between. Mr. Cheshire presumes a thinking, paranoid audience. What he’s got mainly is an Everyone Loves Raymond audience.

Later in the article, Mr. Cheshire back-peddles and attributes the film’s major flaws to its “Euro-style international co-production” phoniness. Really? Well, of course it’s phony—all film is artifice. I think the phoniness resides in the fact that American film is characteristically slicked up, glossed over, and shiny; it’s a normal kind of phony  in the United States.  The actors are perfect. Scenes are special effects heavy. That is the hallmark of American blockbuster filmmaking. If he expected art, than he’s an idealistic buffoon. Euro-style? Uh, no. Thus, in my opinion, there is very little Euro-style in it.  European films are more realistic, more human; they contain more substance, less flash and boom. I find Mr. Cheshire’s remarks to be well off the mark. He’s looking through the eyeglass in reverse.

Overall, I enjoyed the film. I don’t think it’s a French propaganda vehicle. I don’t think it’s excessively or abnormally phony, nor is it a memorial to Stalinism and Soviet communism. Godfrey Chesire is short-sighted  and completely full of himself. Perhaps Enemy at the Gates will be purposed  to honor the  legacy of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany, to memorialize the suffering and sacrifice of the Soviet army and people.