If you love B-movies, about criminal investigations, and aren't too picky about details, then you will like this Spanish crime drama. The plot: In 1943 a serial killer is on the loose, among the Spanish soldiers (the so called Blue Division - Division Espanola de Voluntarios) who are fighting alongside the Germans against the Russian on the Eastern front. The only clue is a part of Spanish nursery rhyme that is carved into the chest of the victims. The private Arturo Andrade, a former police inspector, is ordered to investigate the case. The problem? The Blue Division consists of around 18.000 men, and the task is seemingly impossible. It is also extremely difficult for Arturo, being a private, to investigate a crime within the military hierarchy, during wartime. Arturo tries his best, and slowly manages to gather the evidence he needs. Here in lies the flaw of the manuscript; the clues come a bit too cheap. One scene - where Arturo scours through mail inside a truck which is driven at full speed - is particularly awkward. The end is also not the typical CSI-end (we found the killer and sent him to jail). Despite these flaws, I must admit that I enjoyed this movie and recommend it to those who like B-crime dramas.

Soldiers find a dead Spanish soldier frozen in the icy battlefield. Private Arturo Andrade astutely notices that the guy did not freeze to death, but was murdered in a ritualistic manner. Arturo was then assigned to lead the investigation, that led him a complicated maze of Nazism, Freemasonry and Russian Roulette.The time period was very interesting. 1943, during World War II at a time when Spanish soldiers were fielded to serve in Nazi Germany. However, that piece of history turned out to be nothing more than an elaborate backdrop.The start of this film was so beautifully shot and the development of the story in the first half of the film was so tense and well-done. However, when we get to the second half, I do not know what happened, but suspense that built up all and the patience you have invested in trying to get to the bottom of this mystery collapse like a failed soufflé and go to waste.

this movie has brought me to a teary sleeping stage with constant big yawns one after another. the shooting is not bad, the casting, okay, the directing, well, shall i say, quite dead-beat due to a lousy and loosely knitted screenplay. the plot is not quite interesting either. those Spanish soldiers wearing nazi German's uniforms, all looked too new and too clean, a sharp contrast to the arranged wounded treatment condition. the dialog is also very boring with lot of unnecessary conversations among those soldiers. there lacks any tension during the east front invasion. soldiers didn't look like in a war but a walk in the park. still got time and morale in gambling, drinking, fornicating with the Russian local females who looked more urban instead of peasant-like, all wearing nice and clean dresses, while those Russian people exposed in the open wearing rustically, shabby and poorly, so contrast to those young Russian women came on the horse wagon for the free chow and ride by the Spanish soldiers. there seems to have endless mistakenly arranged fake scenes that mindlessly exposed the incapable knowledge of how to shoot a no-big-deal murder mystery during the harsh winter of the Russian front. by blindly and generously praising the courage to expose the involvement of the Spanish army jointed forces with the nazi German military forces to invade Russia did not deserve my compliment at all, because i am judging whether a movie is good or bad by only concentrating on the movie itself instead of the historical facts or the courage of showing such true involvement.this is an overly ballooned, overly exaggerated movie just like a senior's enlarged prostate that constantly giving you peeing pressure but when you visit the restroom and standing in front of the urinal, all you got is couple of drops instead of torrent. this movie never gave you any thrilling or suspenseful feelings but false hope of expectation through out the whole playing time. just a hollow script carried out by a incapable director. what a disappointment.

The discovery of dead horses and a Spanish soldier's corpse under a frozen lake in the Russian front(with their heads visible over the ice, like in Guy Maddin's "My Winnipeg") triggers an investigation lead by a former Spanish police inspector, now serving in the German army."Silencio en la nieve" tells a fictional story based on a real scenario: the presence of Spanish citizens in the German army during the WWII under the name "División azul". Albeit most of this soldiers were of extremely right-wing ideals, others were adventure junkies or even left-winged persons sent to the Russian front in order to help their politically imprisoned relatives.Curiously there are only brief hints about that in Gerardo Herrero's excellent movie, which doesn't judge or excuse the character's ideals. This is practically an untold story in the annals of Spanish film history (nobody wants to film the exploits of military men who sided with Hitler), but we will have to wait for a war film about this subject (Spanish movie industry has no money for that, Gerardo Herrero dixit), because "Silencio en la nieve" is a murder mystery, and a well crafted one. The acting is superb, specially Carmelo Gómez. On a technical level, some of the special effects needed more budget (a couple of explosions seemed very CGI to me), but these problems are usual in Spanish cinema, and they are approached professionally here.Eventually, viewers should consider "Silencio en la nieve" for what it is: well done, although not original, thriller yarn, using a fresh and never seen background. Highly recommended!