movie review: Downfall
Sandro
2004
To a lot of people it might seem redundant making another film about
World War II, because for those of us not born in the 80s, other than
John F Kennedy's assassination and the Vietnam War, no event had as
profound an impact upon the last century as WWII did, and there is no
shortage of movies or tv stuff devoted to the occasion. Even if people
don't know the details regarding Uncle Adolf, his life and death or
the frightening power he once held, they know at least that he is one
of history's greatest villains.
So who needs another movie about the downfall of the Third Reich? Maybe
Holocaust deniers, anti-semites and warmongers need to have versions of
these films made and have ye olde worlde VHS copies fisted into their
various orifices. But the rest of us think we know all there is to know
about it.
Even if Downfall isn't necessary, it's still damn compelling. A
film that successfully captures and gets across the surreal atmosphere
of Berlin towards the end of the war has to be vital viewing for those
with the time, patience and inclination.
Anyone that knows a bit about German cinema of the last 50 years knows
that there aren't exactly a plethora of German films dealing with
WWII and Hitler. Unlike the States of course, for whom the invention of
film seems to have predominantly been for the purpose of heroically
depicting its men fighting the barbarian hordes overseas.
There used to be an agreed reason why Germany directors and producers
rarely went into this kind of subject matter, but also it's hard to
imagine their audiences cartwheeling all over each other in order to
get to their cinemas to watch films about their country falling under
the sway of an absolute grandiose arsehole and losing a war which was
meant to give them the world and everything in it. It's depressing
subject matter, I guess, but there's also the idea that being
lectured to can get awfully tiresome.
For years I've often wondered what happened to the German people
after the end of the war, in terms of those who were the true believers
and who wholeheartedly swallowed all that idiotic crap about being a
master race and needing to kill all Jewish people in order to really
shine as a nation. When the Nazi hierarchy had their collective arses
handed to them by the Allies, I wonder how long it took before people
"forgot" all the crap that they'd been nodding their heads to,
and started pretending it was someone else who went to the rallies and
turned blind eyes towards the atrocities going on.
This film doesn't answer my questions, but it's a start. Imagine
what it must have been like, if you want to, don't do me any favours,
for not only those military leaders and high-ranking Nazis close to
Hitler, but Hitler himself when it became painfully obvious that their
dreams of ruling the world were going to fall in a heap. That is the
scope of what this film represents, and represents well.
Of course it's depressing subject matter (for me), but it's
nonetheless fascinating. As a curious kind of framing device, the film
begins in 1943 as Uncle Adolf selects a secretary from a bunch of eager
ladies. After he makes his choice the film jumps forward straight to
the dying days of the Third Reich. There is a reason for this, curious
as it seems. One of the people that stayed with the Fuhrer until the
end was his loyal secretary, Traudl Junge, played with believable but
sometimes off-putting wide-eyed innocence by Alexandra Maria Lara. And
though the flick shows the last days from the points of view of a
number of people, Traudl is the one that is supposed to be our entry
point into the film.
There was a recent documentary about her called Blind Spot: Hitler's
Secretary, where she spent most of the doco's length saying that she
knew nothing about the Final Solution or the Reich's genocidal
actions, because Hitler himself was mostly a kindly, gentle sort who
only occasionally ranted about the Jews. Downfall begins and ends with
two telling and important quotes from her, the latter agreeing that for
all her obliviousness she is not absolved of her complicity.
We can't be expected to watch a film and relate to it from the point
of view of people like Hitler himself, or Goering, Goebbels, Himmler,
Boorman, Speer or even Eva Braun. These people have been so thoroughly
demonised by history that they're less than human to us; they are
monsters and demons, all. How could we relate to people who sat at the
top of a massive pyramid of bodies, who partied and profited from the
deaths of millions based on idiotic notions of lebensraum and
justifiable genocide?
It's Traudl we relate through. She sees the Fuhrer at his most
gentle, with children, with his beloved dog Blondi, and with insane
party girl Eva, and she's there when his paranoid insanity explodes
and he screams at the top of his lungs about the German generals who
are betraying him (only in his mind), about the Jewish conspiracies
aligned against him, and the overall worthlessness of the German people
for allowing their racial weakness to be revealed by their failure to
achieve victory. She wants to see the good in the gentle, grandfatherly
Uncle Adolf, and not believe that he is the same raging, delusional
Fuhrer who tore Europe apart with his bare ego.
This leads us of course to the "controversy" surrounding the film.
I didn't think before watching it or afterwards that there was
anything particularly controversial about any aspect of it, but some
people, I'm guessing a few who haven't seen it, resent the film for
its very existence. It's not like it has any gay people getting
married in a church whilst getting IVF help in conceiving babies
genetically engineered from stem cells, or anything.
They, the generic "they", resent the film because it allegedly
humanises Uncle Adolf and his nearest and dearest. I can't deny the
charge: it does humanise him. Bruno Ganz cuts an eerily accurate
portrait of the man in all his glory. Of course it humanises him and
should humanise him: he was human after all, much as we don't want to
believe it. If the film was to have any worth it required him being
played as a character, not as a caricature. And the manner in which he
is humanised is by showing him at his most pathetic, with a few moment
of gentleness just to perplex the viewer further. For my money it's
hard to argue against that.
For all his central importance, Ganz's portrayal doesn't take up
the majority of the screen time. It is just as important to flesh out
the last days by looking at the various personages around him, and the
reactions of the German people who could not know how the war was going
to end.
The way in which this occurs is quite inspired in my anything but
humble opinion. Fairly early on we are given two explicit impressions:
Adolf either blames the German people for his downfall or no longer
cares what happens to them, and thus doesn't care to find any way to
alleviate their suffering before or after the Russians finish off the
Third Reich; knowing this, and seeing the writing on the wall, his
various senior officers deal with the last days in different ways.
Some of the officers want to sue for peace (Himmler), others want to
help the wounded civilians and soldiers in anticipation of the coming
surrender (Schenck) and minimise casualties, others agree with the
Fuhrer that the German people deserve to get their throats cut, mostly
for having put the Nazis in power in the first place (a consumptive and
cadaverous looking Goebbels). Another wants to do nothing more than
drink and whore his way through till the end, whilst others want to
fight and die on their feet.
The civilians are shown either blindly believing that with their plucky
efforts and stick-to-it-tiveness they can still drive the Bolsheviks
back (and instead dying by the bushel), keeping their heads down, or
running around settling old scores by lynching people for fun and
profit. You start to feel sorry for the German people, something which
rarely happens in any war film you usually get to see. Then that little
vicious voice whispers in your head "yeah, but the fuckers asked for
it". Then a quieter, girlier voice says "But you can't blame
civilians for the actions of their governments, can you, even if they
did vote for them on a platform of killing all the Jewish people and
flossing twice daily?"
Ganz deserves the lion's share of the laurels, just to mix my
metaphors, and he's received plenty. He brings a charismatic gravity
to the role, a fragility and a pervading disbelief that his Hitler
could have his destiny thwarted by mere insects. One of my favourite
scenes has the big guy staring up with broken-hearted longing at a
painting of what I think was Otto Von Bismarck, but he gives everything
he's got in every scene. It's hard for me to believe that this is
the same guy who played an angel who falls in love with humanity in
Wings of Desire, now playing a man who would damn the world and
everyone in it because of his frustrated dreams. He does it well, not
afraid to really give it some fire when he's ranting, but also giving
himself over to the twisted physicality of the man in the quieter
moments.
Every level of Hitler's failure is illuminated for our delectation,
for our horror, but probably not for our sympathy. And we await the
inevitable (for those of us who actually know how the war turned out),
knowing that he was dead a long time before he bit the bullet in the
bunker.
The most chilling aspect of the film relates to the True Believers
closest to him, the people who could not imagine a world in which
Nazism wasn't the triumphant ideology and where the Fuhrer was
powerless to prevent his own destruction. People like Joseph Goebbels
and his wife Magda, who decide that a world without Hitler isn't
worth living in for themselves or their family. This leads to a scene
of quiet horror more terrible than anything I've ever seen in a
slasher flick or on reality television. That people could think like
that then, and think like this now is quite disturbing. The scene where
Magda attends to her children is gut-wrenching but probably the most
important in the film in terms of showing the power that Hitler had
over people, or the volition they were willing to give up to him.
The greater level upon which the film succeeds involves getting the
right tone to go alongside the recreation of known events. It's grim,
but large sections are suffused with a surreal, almost comic
ludicrousness. The little humour to be found in the film is mostly
gallows humour, since there's little to laugh about when you're
talking about people that started some shit that resulted in an overall
death count of around 50 million. Give or take a few gypsies and
retards.
The film looks incredibly realistic. It's well shot but not overly
so, in that it's not showy for the sake of it. Since most of the
action happens underground in the cells and corridors of the bunker it
doesn't need to look like Barry Lyndon or The Duellists. But its dark
tone and sometimes cold shot set-ups match the material well. I don't
know how much money they spent on making it but it looks like it was
painfully and accurately reconstructed.
I do have a few issues with the film. There are a lot of characters.
It's hard to keep track of them at some points, and they also don't
all have enough screen time for you to know who's being referred to
by other characters. Complaining about the running time is petty, but
it's a long-arse film, I'll tell you that for free. It may only be
156 minutes long, but it feels longer. I joked with a friend of mine
over a beer afterwards that the one thing the film needed was to be
longer. His main comment was, "Gee, that secretary was a hottie."
Past that he pointed out a few inaccuracies in the movie, being
something of a WWII buff himself, and having recently read Antony
Beevor's excellent book Berlin: The Downfall, 1945 (this flick is
based on Joachim Fest's book Inside Hitler's Bunker, The Last Days
of the Third Reich), but thought that overall it was very well done.
He's Canadian, though, so you've got to cut him some slack.
The ending is also a bit implausible. I can't say why without
spoiling it, but something about it didn't feel right (with Traudl, I
don't mean the collapse of the Reich, which I will never accept).
Still, it's a major film achievement, and I suspect there are
hundreds of thousands of students in schools that will be watching this
film from now until the Fourth Reich begins as part of their history
classes, because this is a quality film that any underpaid teacher
would be happy to inflict upon their kids.
As far as depictions of Hitler go, this is probably the second best
I've seen after Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Though the film could
have been even better if they'd included the song "Springtime for
Hitler and Germany" from Mel Brooks' The Producers. That would have
really blown the roof off.
Sandro - 7 times no-one needs to tell me that compassion is a wasted
emotion for sociopaths out of 10
--
Germany was having trouble, what a sad, sad story
Needed a new leader to restore its former glory
Where oh where was he? Where could that man be?
We looked around, and then we found, the man for you and me,
And now it's ...
Springtime for Hitler and Germany,
Deutschland is happy and gay.
We're marching to a faster pace,
Look out, here comes the master race!
nikolai kingsley
> Then a quieter, girlier voice says "But you can't blame
> civilians for the actions of their governments, can you, even if they
> did vote for them on a platform of killing all the Jewish people and
> flossing twice daily?"
were they really his election promises? i'd hate to think future
generations will blame us for the things Short-stuff is doing,
supposedly for our benefit.
and i suspect the common citizenry have a lot less to do with the
outcomes of elections than many would think.
imorf
>> Then a quieter, girlier voice says "But you can't blame
>> civilians for the actions of their governments, can you, even if they
>> did vote for them on a platform of killing all the Jewish people and
>> flossing twice daily?"
> were they really his election promises? i'd hate to think future
> generations will blame us for the things Short-stuff is doing,
> supposedly for our benefit.
that would depend on whether they were *core* promises.
OT: I had a dream this morning, that I went into a Franklins store and
John Howard was there having some sort of cabinet meeting (a whole bunch
of suits were there). I don't know if that is significant, but the last
political dream I had years ago was Paul Keating standing on my parent's
front lawn so I hosed him down, about a month later, he lost the
election. [No, I didn't wake up with wet sheets smartypants]
imorf
Sandro wrote:
> For years I've often wondered what happened to the German people
> after the end of the war,
I can answer that by analogy. Look what happens to support for the
Sydney Swans when they stop winning.
> powerless to prevent his own destruction. People like Joseph Goebbels
> and his wife Magda, who decide that a world without Hitler isn't
> worth living in for themselves or their family. This leads to a scene
> of quiet horror more terrible than anything I've ever seen in a
> slasher flick or on reality television. That people could think like
> that then, and think like this now is quite disturbing.
In the case of Goebbels, I think they would have had a good
understanding of what the Russians would do to them when captured.
> Past that he pointed out a few inaccuracies in the movie,
a few! some were monumentally obvious:
Hitler never wore a tutu.
France did not surrender thrice, in 1937, 40 and 45.
The sign saying "Achtung! Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgaben-
übertragungsgesetz" was missing an "i".
The Panzerfaust M2110T had a firing time of .5 seconds, not .1 seconds.
In the hyperinflation of the Wiemacht period, sauerkraut did become the
main currency of barter, since it had a longer shelf life than a mark.
there are a heap more, but I lost count after the first half hour.
> The ending is also a bit implausible.
Tell me about it! Hitler and Stalin never came face to face after June
22nd 1941, when Operation Barbarossa began. So how they meet in the end
and Hitler says to Stalin: "Joseph, I'm your father, join me, together
we can rule Europe" is bullshit.
> I don't mean the collapse of the Reich, which I will never accept.
o soo now the mask comes off!
it's in all the history books, I think you will have to, you nazi
revisionist you!
Sandro
>Sandro wrote:
>>For years I've often wondered what happened to the German people
>>after the end of the war,
>I can answer that by analogy. Look what happens to support for the
>Sydney Swans when they stop winning.
They have a supporter base? In NSW? In Sydney? It's the first I've
heard of it. Every time I speak to a NSW person or a Sydneysider
they've either never heard of this "foot ball", or spit on the
ground and threaten to take my mother to a rugby league game.
If only they'd leave her there.
By the way, Happy Motherfucker's Day today, everybody. Surely
that's the day that follows Mother's Day?
>In the case of Goebbels, I think they would have had a good
>understanding of what the Russians would do to them when captured.
The film implied he killed hisself, the ball and chain and the
kiddliewinks out of loyalty to Hitler. And because Big Brother
was back on telly.
>>Past that he pointed out a few inaccuracies in the movie,
>a few! some were monumentally obvious:
>Hitler never wore a tutu.
You're forgetting his time at the Bolshoi between wars and after
the Beerhall Putsch. I've heard that his Nutcracker Suite was sublime
>France did not surrender thrice, in 1937, 40 and 45.
ah, those cheese-eating surrender monkeys, I heard the other week
a car backfired near Chirac's house and he sent out a proclamation
surrendering yet again!
>The sign saying "Achtung!
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgaben-
>übertragungsgesetz" was missing an "i".
You left the umlaut out as well
>The Panzerfaust M2110T had a firing time of .5 seconds, not .1
seconds.
Someone's played a lot of Medal of Honor I see
>In the hyperinflation of the Weimar period, sauerkraut did become the
>main currency of barter, since it had a longer shelf life than a mark.
Pictures of Hitler's hirsute mother replaced that currency quite
swiftly after that as well.
>there are a heap more, but I lost count after the first half hour.
>>The ending is also a bit implausible.
>Tell me about it! Hitler and Stalin never came face to face after June
>22nd 1941, when Operation Barbarossa began. So how they meet in the
end
>and Hitler says to Stalin: "Joseph, I'm your father, join me, together
>we can rule Europe" is bullshit.
I didn't have as much of a problem with that. The prolonged
tongue kissing between Hitler and Stalin is what I objected
to. The slow dancing on the dance floor to the gentle strains
of Marlene Dietrich singing "pull up to the bumper"
is also what really got my goat, sacrificed it to a celebrity
god, fried it up and served it for din dins.
>>I don't mean the collapse of the Reich, which I will never accept.
>o soo now the mask comes off!
and underneath it is a mask uglier than the first
>it's in all the history books, I think you will have to, you nazi
>revisionist you!
Hey! Some of us prefer the fantasy to the reality. Aren't we living
in Philip K Dick's The Man in the High Castle yet? Oh well
Sandro - I can be sillier than you
--
deutscheland deutscheland uber alles
imorf
>>I can answer that by analogy. Look what happens to support for the
>>Sydney Swans when they stop winning.
> They have a supporter base?
sure they do, but the NSW Dept of Mental Health makes them wear red and
white, so other ppl can avoid them or talk slower to them.
(pssst - actually I prefer to watch AFL but don't tell anyone)
> ground and threaten to take my mother to a rugby league game.
> If only they'd leave her there.
> By the way, Happy Motherfucker's Day today, everybody. Surely
> that's the day that follows Mother's Day?
note to group: Sandro has "mother" issues.
>>In the case of Goebbels, I think they would have had a good
>>understanding of what the Russians would do to them when captured.
> The film implied he killed hisself, the ball and chain and the
> kiddliewinks out of loyalty to Hitler. And because Big Brother
> was back on telly.
I'd say that Arabic version of "The Nanny" on SBS has caused more
suicides, so might be the cause....
>>>Past that he pointed out a few inaccuracies in the movie,
>>a few! some were monumentally obvious:
>>Hitler never wore a tutu.
> You're forgetting his time at the Bolshoi between wars and after
> the Beerhall Putsch. I've heard that his Nutcracker Suite was sublime
yes, but I'm sure he didn't wear it round the bunker as a leisure suit
shouting: Entrechat Fouette Pirouette Blitzkreig!!!!
[that's Blitzkrieg you illiterate fool, I before E except after sea
invasion.]
>>France did not surrender thrice, in 1937, 40 and 45.
> ah, those cheese-eating surrender monkeys, I heard the other week
> a car backfired near Chirac's house and he sent out a proclamation
> surrendering yet again!
I wouldn't believe everything I read at Surrender Monkeys Monthly
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-surrendermonkeymag.htm
Sure googling "French surrender" gives 1.32 milion google hits, but I'm
sure at least 20,000 of those 1.32 million refer to pre 1940 incidents.
>
>>The sign saying "Achtung!
> Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgaben-
>>übertragungsgesetz" was missing an "i".
> You left the umlaut out as well
Well since fresh eggs would have been scarce during WWII, that's excusable.
Apparently all the umlauts were needed for the filming of the remake of
Willy Wonka & the choc factory.
(apologies for the second joke, it's such a strech it almost doesn't
qualify as a joke).
>>The Panzerfaust M2110T had a firing time of .5 seconds, not .1
> seconds.
> Someone's played a lot of Medal of Honor I see
NEIN! Enemy Territory. Wunderbar!!! Sogut!!!
>>In the hyperinflation of the Weimar period, sauerkraut did become the
>>main currency of barter, since it had a longer shelf life than a mark.
> Pictures of Hitler's hirsute mother replaced that currency quite
> swiftly after that as well.
hmm "Mother" again? lie down, tell us about your childhood.
(break to Thomas Dolby filmclip)
>>there are a heap more, but I lost count after the first half hour.
>>>The ending is also a bit implausible.
>>Tell me about it! Hitler and Stalin never came face to face after June
>>22nd 1941, when Operation Barbarossa began. So how they meet in the
> end and Hitler says to Stalin: "Joseph, I'm your father, join me, together
>>we can rule Europe" is bullshit.
> I didn't have as much of a problem with that. The prolonged
> tongue kissing between Hitler and Stalin is what I objected
> to.
Well that kind of turned me on, but I admit, it was out of place, I mean
it was "The War Room" not the bedroom.
(thankyou Peter Sellers)
The slow dancing on the dance floor to the gentle strains
> of Marlene Dietrich singing "pull up to the bumper"
> is also what really got my goat, sacrificed it to a celebrity
> god, fried it up and served it for din dins
That was la mode Dictatorial du jour, as Niezsche says: never trust a
god that doesn't dance.
Keeping a harem of blonde virgins was optional.
>>>I don't mean the collapse of the Reich, which I will never accept.
>>o soo now the mask comes off!
> and underneath it is a mask uglier than the first
That reply makes me think of Michael Jackson. Thanks a lot.
>
>>it's in all the history books, I think you will have to, you nazi
>>revisionist you!
> Hey! Some of us prefer the fantasy to the reality. Aren't we living
> in Philip K Dick's The Man in the High Castle yet? Oh well
If that's the story where a severed man finds a Wendy's in his Chilean
woman, then Yes. If that's the story where a disgraced stockbroker
feigns mental illness to avoid weekend detention but forgets to stop and
kills himself, then No.
>
> Sandro - I can be sillier than you
that's like trying to fall faster than someone by flapping.