ENEMY AT THE GATES (2001)
A Commentary by Helen Chavez
Plot SummaryIt is the terrible winter of 1942.
The place is Stalingrad, set in the midst of the vastness of the Soviet Union.
Two great armies are at loggerheads - to the South, the might of Hitler's great Sixth Army forces itself onward, convinced that nothing can stand in its way. Stalin pours countless untrained and unprepared young soldiers into the front line, determined to halt the German advance at any cost. Stalingrad is the crux - if the city falls, so does the Soviet Union.
Into this bombed and desperate city comes young Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), a shepherd from the Urals. A political officer, Danilov (Joseph Fiennes), discovers Zaitsev has a remarkable talent - that of using a rifle with breathtaking accuracy. Danilov decides Zaitsev's ability to shoot Germans is a tailor-made opportunity to raise morale, so Zaitsev becomes a hero, his skills and escapades much-chronicled for the glory of Mother Russia.
Joining a sniper unit, Zaitsev prowls the devastated city, picking off Germans with such deadly skill that he becomes a tremendous threat to the enemy. So the German High Command recruit their finest sniper, Major Koenig (Ed Harris), to kill the young Russian. And so ensues a silent, lethal battle between the two men in the ruined city.
To protect Zaitsev's back, Kruschev (Bob Hoskins) - brought in by Stalin to oversee the city's defence - enlists the skills of veteran sniper Nikolai Koulikov (Ron Perlman), who becomes a mentor to Zaitsev.
Zaitsev also begins a romance with the beautiful and courageous Tania (Rachel Weisz), a young woman of tenacity and intelligence. But she has also caught the eye of Danilov, and the love triangle is played out in the shadow of Zaitsev's duel with the cool and calculating Koenig.
Nikolai Koulikov (Ron Perlman)
Nikolai Koulikov is the first historical character Ron Perlman has played in his long and varied career. Very little is known of the man, but it is known he survived Stalingrad. In Zaitsev's autobiography he is known as his friend, fellow sniper and spotter - the man who 'spotted' the target and set the 'shoot' up. It is Koulikov who 'spotted' and tricked Koenig to betray his position under a sheet of tin.
A big bear of a man, Koulikov is a hard-bitten veteran of the war. Equally happy at formal dinners or sleeping on rubble in a bombed-out building, he is cautious, kind, and an irredeemable cynic - he has little sympathy for communist ideals - on his return from Germany, where he trained under Koenig, he was arrested as a spy, interrogated, and Soviet interrogators knocked out his teeth with a hammer. He now has a gleaming set of metal teeth.
He is rarely seen without his beloved rifle, the famous M1891/30, with a Zeiss 3.5x PU telescopic sight. Effective up to 800 yards, it was deadly in the constricted streets. The trigger guard was made especially large to accommodate gloved fingers, and Koulikov's rifle - like all other snipers' weapons - is wrapped in rags for camouflage.
Trivia
Ron Perlman is left-handed, yet he shoots his rifle right-handed. The reason? The heavy bolt lever that is used to reload the weapon would hit him in the face ….
Nikolai Koulikov was in fact the man who found Koenig. He spotted a flash of metal under a sheet of tin, baited the German enough to get him to return fire, and Zaitsev marked the spot. He killed Koenig with a single shot.
A generally historically accurate film, there is one mistake - In the scene where Zaitsev meets Kruschev, the wrong national anthem is playing. The 1944 anthem is played, and the film takes place in 1942. The band should have played The Internationale, written in 1848.
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