Enemy At The Gates

In his review of Enemy At The Gates, Godfrey Cheshire lambastes the movie as an ode to Stalin and Communism produced by leftist French (read: anti-American) ideologues. Whether the movie portrays a true historical account of the battle for Stalingrad is incidental to his dislike of the filmmakers. Chesire fails to look beyond his own democratic tenets and see that the film is highly critical of Stalin.

Cheshire claims that the movie is “a big-budget paean to Soviet Communism under the gallant leadership of Joe Stalin.” However within minutes of the opening scenes we see the brutality of Stalin’s leadership. The young soldiers are ordered into battle to fight for Russia and if they retreat, even if retreat is the prudent action, they are shot by their commanding officers for cowardice. Through out the film we are shown that Stalin was a vicious leader who was more concerned with winning the battle than using common sense. In a scene that introduces Khrushchev as Stalin’s envoy the commanding officer is offered suicide as an option rather than face the wrath of Stalin. Later we hear Khrushchev on the phone telling his commanders to win continue fighting even if they lose all their troops. Rather than glorifying Stalin these scenes illustrate his brutality.

Cheshire’s assessment is that this movie is just “glossy, anachronistic propaganda”; he refuses to grant that Enemy At The Gates actually condemns Communism. Throughout the movie the commanding officers and the press officers encourage the foot soldiers with the ideal of fighting for the glory of the motherland. However, Koulikov’s description of losing his teeth while being tortured demonstrates that the ‘motherland’ and, by extension Communism, is not the panacea they are led to believe.

Another criticism, made by Cheshire, is that the movie “proffers good guys and bad guys for our rooting enjoyment. Only, here the good guys are Soviet minions doing Crazy Joe's dirty work.” The problem with this accusation is that in that time and place the Russians were the good guys. Cheshire seems to have forgotten that the Russians were our allies during World War II. His own ‘democratic’ dogma blinds Cheshire to the fact that this movie is not about communism or democracy, but a battle in which the Russians and the United States were allied in their goal to defeat Hitler and Nazism.

Cheshire’s xenophobia is obvious as he disparages the movie and the filmmakers. He points to the “moral blindness of the French” and declares that the French left views America as “just another rightist foe, much the same as the Nazis, if perhaps not quite so malign”. He writes that the film is nothing more than an attempt “to wreak a little snotty revenge [by making] a war movie that rips off Spielberg's at every turn….that features Soviets as heroes and has as its Nazi villain an American star”. He asserts that the French need revenge because Saving Private Ryan “is a reminder that Americans helped save the French not once but twice in the last century”. This criticism is petty and small-minded. Cheshire has no issue with whether or not the movie is historically accurate his abhorrence of the movie is strictly because of its origins. He refuses to see past his own doctrine and view this movie objectively.

Mr. Cheshire’s review of Enemy At The Gates ignores the films obvious efforts to show Stalin as a brutal and vicious tyrant and instead focuses on his dislike of the filmmakers. While he disparages the movie for it’s portrayal of Russians as heroes, his review fails to recognize that the Nazi defeat at Stalingrad was probably the turning point in the war. His aversion to the French has eclipsed his ability to view this film impartially. Instead of seeing a battle to defeat Nazism Cheshire perceives the movie as a slight to America and democratic values.