Downfall [DVD]
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Movie Reviews of Downfall [DVD]
Movie Review: The "Downfall" Of A Nation Brings Hope For The Future
Summary: 5 Stars
"April 1945, a nation awaits its...Downfall" so goes the tagline for this movie. That should pretty much tell you all you need to know about the content of this film. Oliver Hirschbiegel's "Downfall" depicts the last 12 days before the end of WW2. The Russians are fighting their way through Berlin as the Third Reich must now face their defeat.
Many people have damned the movie saying the film wrongly humanizes Hitler and the Nazis. These kind of statements are misleading. Yes perhaps some are right, the movie does present Hitler as a human being, we are after all seeing the movie through his eyes. He is the star of the film but under no circumstances does the movie advocate his actions. In my opinion by presenting Hitler the way the film does it merely shows what sort of madman he was. He was a lunatic. Here was a man who failed at nearly ever endeavor he pursued. "Downfall" paints Hitler as a man filled with delusions. He insist that his army continues fighting while others around him say it is pointless. Many of his closet allies abandon him while he goes on protesting saying Germany can not make the same mistake it did during WW1 and surrender. Hitler even says he allowed the Russians to advance as far as they did. It is all a ploy. Now either Hitler was starting to lose his mind or he really did feel he could have won.
"Downfall" on a purely emotion level reminds me of Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" both films seem gut wrenchingly real. It should be pointed out this movie is based on two books. One of them written by Hitler's stenographer Traudl Junge entitled "Until the Final Hour" and another book entitled "Inside Hitler's Bunker" by Joachim Fest. Because of this we believe most of what we see as real. We imagine this was probably the way it really happened. And when you look at the film from that viewpoint you may find, as I did, the movie is depressing. We see people committ suicide and kill their each other, husbands, wives, even children all before they are caught. The scenes with the children broke my heart. Make no mistake about it "Downfall" is a brutally violent film that the squeamish should not see.
But despite the depressing tone and violence "Downfall" is a movie that needs to be seen by as many people who think they can stomach because if for any reason it will serve as a constant reminder of the horrors which were committed and how future generations must learn about the past so incidents such as these will never be repeated.
And what about Bruno Ganz performance? He is surely a front runner for an Oscar nomination. For people who condemn the movie for its portrayal of Hitler, you must realize the complexity of his performance. It is harder to present Hitler this way then in the fashion most wanted. For that you have to give Ganz his due credit.
Bottom-line: At times an all too powerful film depicting the final days of Adolf Hitler. Brutally violent and even depressing this is still a must see so it will serve as a constant reminder of what these people did.
Movie Review: Simply Put, An Excellent Film In All Departments...
Summary: 5 Stars
FROM AN EMAIL TO MY FRIENDS: You know I usually write my cute little movie reviews, but instead I'll just tell you that last weekend I watched one of the BEST movies I've ever seen, but I doubt that many of you will rush right out and rent it because of the subject matter.
The movie's title is "DOWNFALL" and I believe that it came out earlier this year. Why is it so good? Absolutely stellar production, masterful directing and nearly flawless portrayals by the cast. There has probably never been a film to exceed the commitment made to realism and most of the action was documented in writing by people who were there. Some of the cast of characters are still alive today.
What will turn most people off is the fact that it is
a.) a history
b.)it is a "war" movie, and
c.) it's about Hitler.
Actually that's misleading, the film is about the final few days of the Third Reich and all that entails. The script is based on the diary and journals of a few of those who lived to tell the tale, but primarily based upon the writings of one of Hitler's personal secretaries, a young girl of 22 when she went to work for him in 1943, I believe it was.
The film was made by a German crew (directed by a brilliant fellow named Oliver Hirschbeigel) in Germany and Russia, the cast is German, and the language of the film is German as well. If you don't think you want to bother with subtitles I would remind you of how good (and what a huge surprise of a hit) was the film Das Boot a few years back.
I've seen at least two other movies over the years based on this scenario, one starring Alec Guinness and the other with Anthony Hopkins. Neither film was particularly impressive and both had rather obvious "agenda's".
This version is likely the final word on the subject and its relation to film.
DOWNFALL was criticized because it adds a human dimension to people whom we would rather not think of as flesh and blood, but it is mesmerizing to watch this saga unfold and to know that it is probably as close to the horror of being there as can be achieved 50+ years after the fact.
There are several small subplots, one concerning a young boy in the Hitler Youth, as well as a particularly horrifying yet poignant scene involving Magda Goebbels helping to kill her children, to SAVE them from having to live in a world without Der Fuhrer.
This film was---and is---something of a political "hot potato" and there was some doubt that it would ever be licensed in Germany and several other European locations. Some theatres refused to run it at all.
It is gut wrenching on several levels and, again, brilliantly portrayed.
First off I'm a fan of history, a fan of great films and great stories, and a stickler for detail when it comes to the movies. Again, if I were giving stars I think this one would be a full house, 5 out of 5.
Check it out.
SCD
Movie Review: Ist keine Entschuldigen
Summary: 5 Stars
Oliver Hirschbiegel "Downfall" is one of the most best written, directed, and acted films I've ever seen. It's also one of the most disturbing. Prefaced and concluded by excerpts from an actual interview with Trudl Junge, a young Bavarian woman who joined Hitler's secretarial pool in late 1942 and who was in the Fuhrerbunker when he killed himself, the film focuses on the last ten days of Hitler's life.
All of the characters one would expect to see in such a story are present. But Hirschbiegel and screenwriter Bernd Eichinger break away from the stereotypes of them as evil incarnate to present them as complexly tragic figures too. None of the key figures are morally exonerated; they come across all too often as truly brutal creatures who deserve the strongest condemnation. But we also see them as creatures who exhibit vestiges of humanity: Bruno Ganz's Hitler can be distantly caring in private even though a monster when in his role as leader; Magda Goebbels is a Nazi fanatic, but one can't help feel a bit of compassion for her mixed with revulsion when she poisons her children (the scene when the eldest daughter resists the "medicine" is heartbreaking); Eva Braun's inability to quite grasp what's happening, a characteristic of her shallow personality as much as the confusion of the final days, is both horrifying and infuriating, but also somehow touching. In short, the characters breathe, and help the viewer to go beyond one-dimensional stereotypes. Moreover, the film gives a good and chilling impression of the anarchy that broke out in Berlin as the Russian Army closed in: zealous diehard Nazis executing civilian Berliners in last-ditch attempts at "order"; children impressed into the Home Guard; ragged and starving civilians scrambling for a tin of food; SS officers committing suicide rather than surrendering; and ordinary soldiers, stripped of hope, drinking themselves into oblivion. The lessons are plain: war doesn't end neatly and cleanly. The evil wrought by warmakers such as Hitler doesn't die with them.
The visuals of the film are also superb. The Fuhrerbunker is stark, straight-lined, monochromatic, but also decorated with the occasional tacky bourgeois knicknack loved by Hitler. The blasted Berlin streets are desolating to see. The crowded underground scenes make one claustrophic.
In the interview at the film's end, Traudl Junge says that until a certain point in her post-war life, she was unable to see herself as in any way personally implicated in the horrors wrought by Hitler. She was, after all, just a secretary. But then one day she passed a monument to Sophie Scholl, the schoolgirl executed before the war for her "White Rose" resistance to the Nazis. Junge realized with a shock that Sophie and she were born in the same year. Then, Junge tells us, it came to her: even youth is no excuse--"ist keine Entschuldigen"--for either active collaboration or nonresistance to evil.
Highly recommended.
Movie Review: Life and death as the reason for living vanishes
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow, this is one fine film. I disagree with the many on here who claim this whitewashes the Nazis, or makes Hitler cuddly. Those folks were watching some other film. These are brutal, vicious, cold and evil people, willing to sacrifice any number of individuals for a corporate goal. And who cares whether the secretaries have sufficient blame. Of no consequence! The story is gripping, the collapse of a world where one man's will made an empire and then caused that empire to crumble, leaving behind smoking rubble, panic, butchery, death, and chaos. No better evocation exists that I know of showing what happens when man elevates man to omniscience and omnipotence, and then watches the inevitable collapse.
The Hitler we see is a man completely used to having his will carried out, and for the first time he can no longer exercise that will. The needed soldiers aren't there. The ammunition is spent. The Russians are closing in. He cannot speak the world he wants into existence any more, and he opts to kill himself when denied that power. One detail is piled onto another, deftly showing how Germany has transferred all thinking and reasoning to one man, one evil man, and is now reaping the consequences. Two scenes stand out. Eva Braun, played wonderfully as girl who likes to party and dance, but is nevertheless totally devoted, begs for the life of her brother in law. Hitler says "No mercy for traitors" and she replies, quite reasonably, "What difference does that make now? It's all over. Think of my pregnant sister!" But justice must be carried out, because, as Hitler thunders "It is my will!" Eva says, "You are the Fuhrer" and the argument is closed. 90 seconds captures it all.
In another brief episode, a young nurse, who has never known a world without Hitler's all-encompassing leadership, begs him to act to save Germany. If he would speak, Germany would be saved. What a lovely quick portrait of a generation that has given up its power of thought.
There are many other great touches. The feel is claustrophobic and shabby, with shiny silverware and lovely chandeliers incapable of disguising the ever-present fact that they are hidden underground in an ugly concrete fortress where the lights flicker regularly. Frau Goebbels finishing off her lovely children, saving them from a world without National Socialism. We watch in disgust as she kills these gorgeous young angels. And Hitler being asked for an ID card at his wedding? Perfect. The law above all things!
How anyone could feel anything other than contempt and disgust for these savages is beyond me. Oh yes, they were people, indeed. Maybe that's what this film's many critics don't like; we prefer our monsters to be something other than human, and therefore, unlike us. But this story is the tale of people just like us. People who thought they were working for "good." People who believed in the human goodness, and found death the only way out when they lost that faith.
Movie Review: Dürer-like sketch-drawing...
Summary: 5 Stars
Allow me to start by confessing that it had taken a lot of time and persuasion for me to watch this film. I could not understand what was to be seen in the last few days in the life of Hitler. While the film's advocates would keep answering: "It's so powerful/realistic that you've got to see it."
It should be repeated that the sources employed in making 'Downfall' were: Joachim Fest's novel, Inside Hitler's Bunker, and the memories of Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge. Mrs. Junge, 25 at the time the events took place, wrote down her memories shortly after the war.
Myself, I had the feeling of watching something resembling a documentary. This film has hardly a plot. Moreover, its makers make a point in telling us, see DVD-extras, how faithfully they re-created the film's decor. The acting itself, by and large, is helping too. That feeling led me incessantly into questioning the veracity of the facts and dialogues - not that it mattered. I thought "How could have a 25-year old lady, who seemed so surprised of nazi crimes afterwards, been in so many places in that brief period of time?" When you watch Goebbels' wife killing her 5 children you may understand the point I'm trying to make. Hmm, I may need some 'getting used to' docudrama genre. Until then, 'Downfall' occupies the place of a court sketch-drawing - you are certain only of the verdict, even if Dürer were to do it.
At this time, I find the value of 'Downfall' to be in reminding tyrants, or those who want to perfect the world and have the means to do it, that we are only humans, and thus governed by imperfection. So, don't even think about it!
At a different level, this film carries two major themes one would do well to internalize: For some, there is nothing to be learned and then not follow (the charismatic leader) blindly; And, absolute power corrupts absolutely. At least on the latter theme, the U.S. (Anglo-Saxon) political system seems to have some built-in protection. In case you find these 2 themes relevant, you may also want to check out "Triumph of the Will."
Since the aspect of Hitler as a human being, in conjunction with this movie, is so much discussed, I have to say that I fail to see any human(ized) Hitler. Not that the particulars in Hitler's life, especially this late in the game, concern me a bit, yet wanted to briefly touch on this point too for those seeking it. After all, maybe this is what they mean by "German movie for Germans."
From the DVD extras, we learn that 'Downfall' was also meant to be a compressed history of the last days of the 3rd Reich, as well as the last 12 years in the life of Hitler. Considering this is a film, maybe these two are the appropriate, however simplified, hermeneutics.
In the end, I cannot tell you whether or not to watch it, but I'd be glad if my review helped you make up your mind. I should add, rating a film like this is a problem...