Empire UK
April 2001
By Mark Dinning

The most expensive Euro film ever made. Jude Law and Ed Harris duelling to death. Take cover for an exclusive on set sortie through "Enemy At The Gates"

Dead men. They tell no tales. Don't wear plaid. Nor, it would seem, do they complain particularly vociferously when cups of tea are rested on their head. "What, old Billy boy here?" asks the sound technician, removing his cuppa from a fake cadaver's latex bonce. "I don't think he minds all that much, do you?"

But if the atmosphere on the freezing, mud caked Berlin set of Enemy At The Gates remains somehow jovial,the film's subject matter is quite the opposite. Indeed, with "old Billy boy" just one of the many, many corpses strewn about the painstakingly recreated (it took a crew of 300 nearly five months) war zone, the brutal reality of the harrowing conflict comes flooding instantly home.

"Everyone knows how shocking the War was," says Jude Law as he surveys the carnage. "But this particular battle was extraordinarily appalling".

The facts of which are these: realising what a coup capturing Stalin's namesake city would be, Hitler dispatched his armies to Stalingrad, a major industrial centre on the volga river. They arrived towards the end of 1942 and - after relentless restitance from poorly-equipped Russian soldiers - eventually surrendered in February 1943, with estimated losses of 800,000 men. Over one million soviet troops had also lost their lives (although many had been shot by their own officers for retreating), and of the city's peacetime population of 500,000, a mere 1,000 survived. To this day, the seige remains both the turning point of World War II and one of the most devastating ever seen in modern guerrilla warfare.

"The attractive thing about war, though,in terms of it being conducive to storytelling," ponders Law, "is that it brings everyone down to a stripped, primal level. You've immediatley got an extremity to play the drama against."

In Vassili Zaitsev, Law portrays one of Russia's true national heros, a sniper whose acumen with a rifle resulted in "the amazing head count" of 400 German officers, and whose propaganda enhanced reputation ("In a very un-Communist way he became an individual hero") reinvigorated the morale of an army on the brink of collapse. Add to that his German counterpart, his "antithesis yet mirror" Major Konig (Ed Harris), and the stage is set for an historic showdown. "Konig is percieved more as a presence, more a man on a mission," Harris says of the sharpshooter drafted in to eliminate the one-man threat to German victory. "The centre of the story is the duel between Zaitsev and Konig. And it's very tense, very well-realised and very intriguing."

While the duel is undoubtedly the film's focal point, Jean-Jacques Annaud's epic is worthy of note on a number of other levels. The most expensive European project ever (its budget currently estimated at somewhere north of of £60 million), it was financed largely by German money, featured three British leads(Law, Rachel Weisz and Joseph Fiennes) and one American (Harris), and was directed by a Frenchman.

"What's so fascinating about this, however, is that it's an intimate story on a vast canvas," notes Annaud, ruffling his shock of white hair, "a film about duels and duality, contrasts and extremes. And while it has the scope of cinema, there's an almost theatrical quality of character." As such, Annaud's search for the perfect cast was extensive, to say the least. Having already decided on Fiennes for the part of political officer Danilov, the casting of Law soon followed. "He's just so beautiful," remembers Annaud. "I met him and said to myself: 'If this guy doesn't become a major star, then I know nothing about this industry.'" As did that of Weisz as Tania, a female soldier and pinnicle of the film's love triangle."That character was so important," Annaud recalls. " I didn't want to have her as some Signourney Weaver-type, all tits and short skirts. She had to be real."

Even if the finalised cast had the luxury of not having to put on accents ("I wanted to avoid that whole, 'Ve vill make you talk!' cliche," adds Annaud), 14 hour days, six days a week, did gradually begin to take their toll. "Oh, it was tough. And also, the very fact that these people had a life expectancy of only four days really makes you start to think about the whole idea of fate," philosophises Fiennes. "You know, it's that old concept of, 'How do you make God laugh? Tell him about your plans...'" Law soon began to regret swapping The "Talented Mr Ripley's" sun-drenched beaches for the drizzle of Berlin, and nor was the "not too hot when it comes to the cold" Weisz overly happy. "It's minus 30, you're freezing cold and you start to ask yourself: 'Just how long would you have lasted? Would I have survived?' Then of course, you go back to your nice warm trailer," she says. "It's such a human story. People, when they knew they were going to die, would grab the last moment of life they possibly could. It makes you realise that under these circumstances, social convention goes out of the window."

With all concerned furiously proud of the finished version's understated tone ("The horror here is not the blood and piles of intestines, its in the truth," says Annaud), whether its box office will recoup the initial outlay is uncertain. Not least because with neither Tom Hanks, nor a merry band of heroic GIs, US audiences will possibly be outraged over the historical 'inacuracies'...

Nonetheless, for anyone still bemoaning the poetic licence taken with last year's war-time adaptions (most notably U-571 and the Patriot), Enemy At The Gates is arguably the perfect antidote. "Oh absoluetly," agrees Law, reflecting on his Berlin experience. "I know it's twee to say that this affected me, but it did. Before, I had a really naive idea that there was a macho element to fighting, but with this you realise very quickly that it's not about that, it's about every one of us being put in a postion where you have to kill people." He pauses. "And yeah, I suppose if my family were in danger I could do it, I could kill someone. But for these guys it became a way of life, and it's about time that reality is shown."