Reviews

This film is not only about sex, nudity and fornication. My wife, who completely missed the point was amazed that 'Nicole allowed herself to be in this lewd film'. Of course there is a LOT of nudity, but what struck me was what Kubrick was telling us about where power resides in society.

Cruise is an affluent, well connected Doctor with a beautiful wife who slowly becomes aware of an unseen, powerful inner sanctum who literally get away with murder. They can make people disappear. They can threaten anyone who exposes them. They can even threaten Cruise himself!

I thought his portrayal was brilliant, you could see the good Doctor's mind working as, piece by piece, he realizes how hopeless his position would be were he to air his suspicions to Police.

Kubrick is telling us something far more profound than the incredible debauchery of a wealthy class of New York citizens. He also knew it would be lost on most viewers of this excellent film.

I had the honour of knowing a German soldier who fought in the streets of Stalingrad and was one of the few (about 9,000) who got out, on an aircraft. He was the father of one of my boyhood schoolmates, a quiet decent man, his face would light up in a kind of animation whenever the subject was raised, but he wouldn't talk about it to us boys.

He's gone now, poor old fellow. He spent the last years of his life living in a Caravan/humpy on the foot of a mountain in Southern Australia, estranged from his wife, who never forgave him after she discovered he'd fathered a child to another woman during WW2 and was secretly supporting the child financially.

A kinder, more honorable man would be hard to find. I think this film succeeds in depicting the decency of the people on both sides of the conflict as well as the obligatory sadism of the Officer who ordered the firing squad shootings of Russian civilians.

It's pity the Germans still feel no WW2 Film is complete unless traces of the 'evil Nazi' are included. On the other hand it was not lost on myself at least, that the prayer scene, in which the German Army chaplain made a long point of the fact that each Wehrmacht soldier had 'God with us' imprinted under his belt buckle. While the Godless communists enemy did not.

Maybe this is a sly inclusion by the filmaker showing how European peasantry has been propagandised to hate and kill the enemy for centuries.

Stalingrad was the largest battle ever fought in human history. The Germans lost 300,000 frontline combat troops and later, the second World War. This is the best Film ever made on the subject. It is fitting that it was done by Germans.

Bernhard

I first saw it as a ten year old in Mt Macedon Victoria. The theatre was in the old Town Hall. The projector would routinely break down. My house was about three miles further up the Mountain and after the movie, I had to push my bicycle up a long, dark track through the dense Mountain forest on a black moonless night.

I've known what fear is ever since, believe me.

At every step along the way I just KNEW one of those giant mutants was about to leap out of the dark and grab me!

What a film it was. For years, whenever a horror movie was the main feature at Mt Macedon Town Hall on Saturday nights I'd furtively check it out before agreeing to meet up with my mates for a night out at the 'flicks'. It was alright for THEM, they didn't have so far to go alone, in the dark of night, through the Australian bush.