An epic film from Russia about the defining battle of WWII which focuses around two houses facing each other across Stalingrad’s iconic square.

In one the Russians prepare to hold off the German onslaught long enough for replacements to arrive from the rear of the city across the Volga. A woman stays with the soldiers and befriends them helping by cooking and treating their wounds.

The version of this film I was given to review had quite poor English subtitles and sometimes it was a bit of an effort to keep up with the narrative. There is of course also the Russian classical style of film-making which tells stories in a very different way to Hollywood: rather than posing a story from start to finish they often interweave other stories as they occur, while major events are occurring around them. Hollywood does this too, but in the Russian style these minor stories dominate a lot of screen time, making the overall narrative seem disjointed by the time we get back to it.

However if you are prepared to accept these few minor problems for Western viewers, Stalingrad is well worth the 3 or so hour watch. It stands up well as a companion piece to the 1993 German film of the same name.