Enemy at the Gates

A young Vasily Zaitsev is taught how to shoot a hunting rifle by his grandfather, in the Ural Mountains. Later, following the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Zaitsev is a soldier in the Red Army and is sent to the front line of the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. Forced into a suicidal charge without a rifle, he hides while a tank shell incapacitates a car. The occupant, Commissar Danilov, hides among numerous bodies, coincidentally next to Vasily, who uses his exceptional marksmanship to kill the German soldiers nearby.

Nikita Khrushchev arrives in Stalingrad to coordinate the defence of the city and demands ideas from his subordinates on morale. Danilov, now a senior lieutenant, suggests that the people need "an example to follow" and give them hope. When Khrushchev asks if he knows any such men, Danilov recommends Zaitsev. Soon after, Danilov begins publishing heroic tales of Vasily's exploits in the army's newspaper.

Vasily is transferred to the sniper division and becomes friends with Danilov. Both also become romantically interested in Tania Chernova, a citizen of Stalingrad and private in the local militia. In fear for her safety, Danilov has her transferred away to an intelligence unit, ostensibly to make use of her German skills in translating radio intercepts.

With the Soviet snipers taking an increasing toll on the German forces, German Major Erwin König is deployed to kill Vasily and crush Soviet morale. A renowned marksman and head of the German Army sniper school at Zossen, he lures Vasily into a trap and kills two of his fellow snipers, but Vasily manages to escape. When the Red Army command learns of König's mission, they dispatch König's former student Koulikov to help Vasily kill him. König, however, outmaneuvers Koulikov and kills him, shaking Vasily's spirits. Khrushchev pressures Danilov to bring the sniper standoff to a conclusion.

Sasha, a young Soviet boy, volunteers to act as a double agent by passing König false information about Vasily's whereabouts. Vasily sets a trap for König and manages to wound him with help of Tania, who has come to rescue Vasily. During a second attempt, Vasily falls asleep, and his sniper log is stolen by a looting German soldier. The German command takes the log as evidence of Vasily's death and plans to send König home, but König does not believe that Vasily is dead.

The German general takes König's dog tags to prevent Soviet propaganda from profitting if König is killed. König also gives the general a War Merit Cross that was posthumously awarded to König's son, who was a lieutenant in the 116th Infantry Division and killed in the early days of the battle. König tells Sasha where he will be next, suspecting that the boy will tell Vasily. Tania and Vasily have meanwhile fallen in love. That night, Tania secretly goes to the Soviet barracks and makes love with Vasily. The jealous Danilov disparages Vasily in a letter to his superiors.

König spots Tania and Vasily waiting for him at his next ambush spot, confirming his suspicions about Sasha. He then kills the boy and hangs his body to bait Vasily. Vasily vows to kill König and sends Tania and Danilov to evacuate Sasha's mother. Tania is wounded by shrapnel en route to the boats.

Thinking she is dead, Danilov regrets his jealousy of Vasily and expresses disenchantment over his previous ardour for communism. Finding Vasily waiting to ambush König, Danilov intentionally exposes himself in order to provoke König into shooting him and revealing his position, sacrificing his life. Thinking that he has killed Vasily, König goes to inspect the body and is then in Vasily's sights.

Accepting his fate, König turns to face Vasily, who shoots him squarely in the eye and takes his rifle. Two months later, after Stalingrad has been liberated and German forces have surrendered, Vasily finds Tania recovering in a field hospital.

Filming was done in Germany. The crossing of the Volga River was done on the Altdöberner See, a man-made lake near the village of Pritzen, in the south of Brandenburg. A derelict factory in the village of Rüdersdorf was used to recreate the ruins of Stalingrad's tractor factory. The massive outdoor set of Stalingrad's Red Square was built at Krampnitz, near Potsdam. It was a former Wehrmacht riding school that became a Soviet barracks during the Cold War. Set construction began in October 1999 and took almost five months to complete.[7] The scene at the end with the waving coats is a wink to Sergio Leone whose producer asked Annaud to film Leone's film on Leningrad, which never came into being.[8]

The soundtrack to Enemy at the Gates was written by James Horner and released on March 31, 2001.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 53% approval rating from 139 critics with a weighted average score of 5.70/10. The consensus reads, "Atmospheric and thrilling, Enemy at the Gates gets the look and feel of war right. However, the love story seems out of place."[10] Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, calculated an average score of 53 out of 100, based on 33 reviews.[11]

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four and wrote that it

is about two men placed in a situation where they have to try to use their intelligence and skills to kill each other. When Annaud focuses on that, the movie works with rare concentration. The additional plot stuff and the romance are kind of a shame.[12]

New York Magazine's Peter Ranier was less kind, declaring "It's as if an obsessed film nut had decided to collect every bad war-film convention on one computer and program it to spit out a script."[13] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone admitted the film had faults, but that "any flaws in execution pale against those moments when the film brings history to vital life."[14]

The film received unenthusiastic reviews in Russia, but had good box office in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Some Red Army Stalingrad veterans were so offended by inaccuracies in the film and how the Red Army was portrayed that on 7 May 2001, shortly after the film premiered in Russia, they expressed their displeasure in the Duma, demanding a ban of the film, but their request was not granted.[15][16]

The film was also received poorly in Germany. Critics claimed that it simplified history and glorified war.[17][18][19] At the Berlinale film festival, it was booed. Annaud stated afterwards that he would not present another film at Berlinale, calling it a "slaughterhouse" and claiming that his film received much better reception elsewhere.[20][21]

Vasily Zaitsev's sniper rifle on display at the Volgograd's Stalingrad Panorama Museum. Actor Jude Law (who portrays Zaitsev) uses an accurate version of the weapon in the film: a 7.62×54mmR Mosin Model 1891/30 sniper rifle with a PU 3.5× sniper scope.

Vasily Zaitsev (1915–1991) was a senior sergeant (Russian: ста́рший сержа́нт) in the 2nd Battalion, 1047th Rifle Regiment, 284th Tomsk Rifle Division, during the Battle of Stalingrad.

The film uses events from William Craig's 1973 nonfiction book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad, but it is not a direct adaptation. The book claims that Zaitsev fought his sniper duel over a number of days through the ruins of the city. It was only after killing the German and collecting his identification tags that Zaitsev discovered that he had killed König, the head of the Berlin Sniper School.[22]

However, there is no record in the Wehrmacht archives of a sniper named König in the German Army during World War II.[23] Historian Antony Beevor wrote in his 1998 work Stalingrad that he believed Zaitsev's story to be fictional because no such event is mentioned in the detailed daily battle reports sent to Colonel General Aleksandr Shcherbakov in Moscow.[24]

The film also overdramatizes the role of blocking detachments in the Red Army. Although there was Order No. 227 (Russian: Директива Ставки ВГК №227) that became the rallying cry of "Not a step back!" (Russian: Ни шагу назад!, romanized: Ni shagu nazad!), machine gunners were not placed behind regular troops with orders to kill anyone who retreated. They were used only for penal troops. Detachments were used regularly to prevent withdrawal or desertion by regular troops. As per Order No. 227, each detachment would have between three and five barrier squads per 200 personnel.[25]

In the first three months, blocking detachments shot 1,000 penal troops and sent 24,993 to penal battalions. By October 1942, the idea of regular blocking detachments was quietly dropped; by October 1944, the units were officially disbanded.[26][27][28] During the Battle of Stalingrad, the 62nd Army had the most arrests, and executions: 203 in all of which 49 were executed after battle, while 139 were sent to penal companies and battalions.[29][30][31][32]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Enemy at the Gates

• Enemy at the Gates at IMDb
• Enemy at the Gates at the British Film Institute
• Enemy at the Gates at AllMovie
• Enemy at the Gates at Rotten Tomatoes
• Enemy at the Gates at Metacritic
• Enemy at the Gates at Box Office Mojo
• Enemy at the Gates Reviewed by David R. Stone, History Department, Kansas State University, published by H-War (June, 2002)