Downfall (2004)

The riveting subject of Downfall is nothing less than the disintegration of Adolf Hitler in mind, body, and soul. A 2005 Academy Award nominee for best foreign language film, this German historical drama stars Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire) as Hitler, whose psychic meltdown is depicted in sobering detail, suggesting a fallen, pathetic dictator on the verge on insanity, resorting to suicide (along with Eva Braun and Joseph and Magda Goebbels) as his Nazi empire burns amidst chaos in mid-1945. While staging most of the film in the claustrophobic bunker where Hitler spent his final days, director Oliver Hirschbiegel (Das Experiment) dares to show the gentler human side of der Fuehrer, as opposed to the pure embodiment of evil so familiar from many other Nazi-era dramas. This balanced portrayal does not inspire sympathy, however: We simply see the complexity of Hitler's character in the greater context of his inevitable downfall, and a more realistic (and therefore more horrifying) biographical portrait of madness on both epic and intimate scales. By ending with a chilling clip from the 2002 documentary Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary, this unforgettable film gains another dimension of sobering authenticity. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

 It is a "Downfall" that this movie is in German!
Good movie - but it's all in German with english sub-titles!
Amazon should have noted this under the product discription.
Other than that the film gives a good account of Hitler's last days
in his bunker, surrounded by his army chiefs, and unwilling to
believe that he was losing the war. There is nothing about the
concentration camps as the story is told through the eyes of
Hitlers young secretary Trudi. May 11, 2008

 A good film. Know German.
Der Untergang (Downfall) is an excellent German film on the final days in Hitler's bunker. Films have been made of this subject before but this German version is unusual for its realism. Rather than portray Hitler as a cartoon nemesis type, he is portrayed as a real, if not very human, person whose life has been brought to this insane end by his own idiocies.

But the film is much more about the nuttiness of his peewit followers and admirers who fawn over him and maintain their belief in him even as their world is going to hell all around them. The film concentrates on one of the less offensive of these: Gertrude "Traudl" Junge, one of his secretaries. Pretty and personable, she tries to maintain her faith despite the surrealism of the bunker.

This film is hard to watch. The worst of Hitler's underground menagerie is Dr Goebbels and his handsome but lunatic wife. Goebbels, in one of his rare diversions into humor, once said that it was fortunate that his children
took after himself for brains and his wife for looks. It was true. The Dr was a foul looking little creep of a man, but his children (I have seen pictures of them) were beautiful. Goebbels and his wife poisoned their children in the bunker shortly after Hitler committed suicide so that they would not grow up in Germany without Nazism. This
act of infanticide is brutally shown in the film. It is a painful scene.

The film is well made. A warning: it is entirely in German with English subtitles, no dubbing.
April 22, 2008

 Human Evil
I'm bemused by the criticism of this film based on the fact that it depicts the Nazi leadership as human beings. To me, that renders the horror more acutely and forces us to address, squarely, the question of how individuals can depersonalize others to the extent that they can rejoice at the concept of mass murder & extermination? In fact, I found that this film helped me comprehend a small part of that by portraying the culture of death that surrounded Hitler, Goebbels and the inside elite. The beliefs and actions they accepted as a normal part of human life -- and the fact that they did accept these as normal and even desireable -- is far more damning than a more conventional Holocaust drama. (After all, didn't serial killer Ted Bundy appear on the outside to be a polite, charming guy? The true horror lies in the idea that someone can commit horrific murders and calmly go grocery shopping -- it forces us to recognize that evil does not always look like the bogeyman.) The scene in which Magda Goebbels kills her children -- forcing her eldest daughter to bite down on the cyanide capsule -- demonstrates more powerfully than any other single filmed scene exactly how evil these individuals were. This is not a film for those who want easy answers about human nature. It challenges the viewer to ponder the apparent ease with events can snowball and lead to horrific evil, as well as force us to question how individuals could do this. It doesn't need an emphasis on anti-Semitism to deliver a powerful wallop. Rather, the film triumphs because it shows how Hitler's political philosophy negated humanity itself, a vast and horrifying concept. I watched this film when it first appeared on DVD and have yet to forget it. For those of us aware of the war and the Holocaust only through the stories of our elders, the acting, script, cinematography etc. brings the full horror to life. If you're looking for a comparable book, I'd suggest Gitta Sereny's examination of Albert Speer. Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth April 20, 2008

 Probably the Most Important Recent Film on Hitler and the Third Reich
This film is a truly amazing piece of work. Historically well researched, all of the major players are present and play their part in these, the last days of the Reich, as are all of the emotions one would anticipate as the armies of Stalin close in on the once proud city of Berlin.

As the battle rages closer and closer to the heart of Berlin, Hitler (and the residents of Berlin) react with delusional detachment. Hitler insists to his sycophants in the bunker that this invasion so deep into the capital of the Reich is all a ploy - a decoy for a final assault by the German armies that will break the back of the Russians and turn the tide of the war. The architects of the Reich - Himmler, Speer, Fegelein, Hess (offstage) and others - realize the futility of the situation and begin to rapidly maneuver to save their skins (Himmler even asks Fegelein whether he should give Roosevelt the Nazi salute or shake his hand as he tenders Germany's surrender), while the personal staff of Hitler and the citizenry of Berlin descend into a surreal, macabre festivity (as Trudl Junge, played to naïve perfection by Alexandra Maria Lara, says "it's like a dream, which you cannot escape, which never ends"). As the situation's genuine hopelessness becomes overwhelmingly apparent, the residents of the bunker begin to casually discuss the best means of suicide over dinner, again adding to the surreal air of the portrayal. Frau Goebbels' insistence that her children "cannot conceivably grow up in a world without National Socialism" rings similar of other more modern political and ideological sound bites and her depraved subsequent acts look similar to several other cinematographical events presented in a more heroic light.

What truly forces this film out of the crowd of other films dealing with Hitler and the fall of the Reich is its portrayal of the various Nazi participants as human beings, rather than diabolical or demonic entities of evil incarnate. I've always felt that portrayal of Hitler and his cronies as slavering maniacs (Hitler - The Rise of Evil, with Robert Carlyle, is the worst of the lot) and the German soldiers under their command as mindless automatons who shoot wherever they point does history a tremendous disservice. Portraying them as "fantasy/horror" villains of obvious evil demeans and diminishes the historical lesson to be learned, and implies that such characters are easily recognizable. Having lived abroad for the last 14 years, I've never been able to accept that the well-educated German people elected and supported a slavering lunatic - spittle smearing maniacs have a tough time appealing to the general populace, particularly an astute one. In a culture where "humanizing" Hitler is something to apologize for, it's easy to forget that Hitler was, in fact, just that - human - not some fantasyland villain or monster.

Bruno Ganz's portrayal of Adolph Hitler is almost grandfatherly, a seemingly benevolent man whose hands shake from palsy (the later stages of syphilis) but who addresses his troops and supporters on a first name basis and constantly exudes charm, wit and charisma (at least in the early moments of the film). Here lies the true message and the most important aspect of the film - these men were monsters, but they were human monsters, coupled with minds and visions much greater than the average. Despicable and evil, but, at the same time, great and inspiring. Unlike Carlyle's portrayal of Hitler in Rise of Evil, or Spielberg's/Schindler's List's Amon Goeth (portrayed by Ralph Fiennes), these monsters could pass you on the street and you wouldn't look twice. You'd invite them into your home, perhaps even support them if you did not have history to put them into context. Bruno Ganz's Hitler isn't a man who woke up every morning wringing his hands and sneering villainously, looking forward to doing "evil" during the day. He was committed to a cause and vision, albeit a twisted and corrupt one, who managed to capture the emotions of one of the most well educated countries in the world. As both Hitler and Goebbels remark during the film "The (German) people gave us a mandate. They supported what we have done. I do not pity them for what is to come." The old adage of "Never again!" has to be reviewed in this context. Have states and peoples subsequently been led to do evil by their leaders on the basis of emotion and collective hysteria? If so, will they again?
April 9, 2008

 Really good, considering the subject matter
This is a tricky review to write b/c I do not want to offend anyone. However, this film was strongly recommended to me by a co-worker and he pestered me and pestered me until I watched it so we could discuss it. I am glad I did. A lot of stuff for your mind to chew on while watching. There is no footage of the camps, mostly all of the footage is in the bunker a few days before the fall of Germany in WW2. A very human film.
April 7, 2008

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