Review – Embedded '45: Shooting War in Germany

It’s a little hard to tell because of the English narration, but this appears to be a documentary originally produced for German television. Certainly problems with translation might go a ways toward explaining some of the odd information presented here and there. However, one could almost watch the movie with the sound off and still appreciate the main asset of the production: lots of fascinating footage of the last three months or so of the European end of World War Two. The movie-makers combed the National Archives and found some impressive stuff, film of American soldiers fighting house-to-house in the ruined cities of Germany, capturing prisoners of war, liberating work camps, and even executing an SS saboteur. However, the visuals aren’t aided much by the narration (mostly run-of-the-mill description with little insight into the process of shooting film in the middle of a war) or the added sound effects. The narrative structure also apparently required the re-use of some of the scenes, as (for example) we see the same POWs being captured at several points in the story. Overall this is worth it for the pictures as long as one doesn’t expect much else to go along with it. Mildly amusing