DOWNFALL (2004)

A.K.A.: Der Untergang

Country: Germany

Genre(s): Drama / War

Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel

Cast: Bruno Ganz / Alexandra Maria Lara / Juliane Kohler

Plot

As the Soviet army invades Berlin, Adolf Hitler and his inner circle live out the final days of Nazi rule in an underground bunker.

What I Liked

With intriguing real-life characters, engaging performances, immaculate production values, and controversial subject matter, “Downfall” is one of the most fascinating dramas I’ve seen.  It takes a lot of skill, talent, and daring to make sympathetic characters of the Nazis in a major motion picture.  Yet the makers of “Downfall” do so quite effectively without ignoring or excusing the evils for which Adolf Hitler and his followers were responsible.  What the film does is give us the German people who, excepting for Hitler and some of his most ardent followers, were simply men and women swept up in history.  Some of them despise the Nazis but have no choice but to follow them obediently in the face of possible execution; others are in love with the ideal German golden age Hitler sold them, brainwashed into fanaticism; others are simply doing what they see as their duty, serving their beloved country, regardless of who leads it; most tragically, others are simply children who, raised with Nazi ideals and knowing nothing else, are anxious to prove themselves worthy of those ideals.  All of them, from Hitler himself to his most ardent enemies, suffer heartbreaking trial and disaster during the the collapse of Nazi rule.

Too often films simply take the easy route of portraying the Nazis as some kind of comic book villains, pure evil without reason or context.  To do so is not just historically inaccurate, it is ignoring the very true danger of fascism, dictatorships, and extremist politics; that very real and very good people participate in such movements with no bad intentions whatsoever.  Most of the people who lived, worked, and served in Germany under Nazi rule (even some of those in Hitler’s inner circle) were just regular people whose lives were shattered not just by the rise of Nazism but also by its fall.  In short, this film gives what feels like the first real and honest depiction Berlin and its leadership, teetering on the precipice of crisis at the close of the Second World War. 

What I Didn’t Like

If it’s no small feat to make the Nazis sympathetic, then it’s a genuine miracle to portray their Fuehrer as a human and not the dastardly, simple-minded caricature of so many other movies.  So I preclude the criticism that is to follow by stating that I fully realize that Bruno Ganz’s portrayal of a multi-dimensional Adolf Hitler is one of the finest performances in film history y.  The problem is, that never once during the entire picture did I see Hitler as a man who could inspire millions.  Even in his most well-behaved moments, he seems a broken, grumpy, delusional old man full of loathing for himself and the rest of humanity.  Perhaps this is really what Hitler was like by this point (the story is based on the accounts of people who were actually there, after all).  But its seems to me that for the film to have made better sense, we could have seen at least glimpses of the fiery, straight-backed, demagogue who inspired a nation to willingly destroy itself.

Most Memorable Scene

*spoiler alert*

There are so many moments of this film that make the mind wonder at the fanaticism of the characters.   But perhaps none of them is more poignant than when Magda Goebbels murders her own children because she refuses to let them grow up in a world where Nazism doesn’t exist.  The heart just charges right into the throat in this crushing scene where the true tragedy of it all really sets in.  Of course we feel such heartache for these wholly innocent children, but, horror of horrors, we even feel for Mrs. Goebbels, the woman whose moral beliefs have been so badly distorted that she whole heartedly believes that nothing but terror and suffering will come to future generations after the fall of the Nazis.

My Rating: 5 out of 5