THIS TAKES YOU INTO HITLER’S BUNKER DURING THE BRUTAL & TERRIFYING LAST DAYS OF THE THIRD REICH.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
February 6, 2006
#1
If I had received the DVD from Amazon I could have commented.
This was supposedly couriered by DHL on 13 February and has still not been received. DHL says that Amazon never handed over the package which on Amazons records shows as a completed shipment.DHL has not delivered this package as yet.
February 6, 2006
#2
Taken out of context, this is a great drama/tragedy about the downfall of an empire. The movie, however, is about the most infamous war criminals in human history. Taking the final days of their lives out of historic context is the crime of this movie.
In Downfall, the Nazi leaders at the end of the war are faced with the moral choices to abandon their leader and flee Berlin, to surrender to the enemy, or to face death with honor. And how does the movie solve their dilemma? A few cowards flee Berlin very early in the movie. The rest chose to die but not to surrender. How honorable! Problem is, most of them chose to die not because they were honorable but because they were afraid. They were very, very afraid that they’d get burned alive for their crimes. The authors of the movie, however, didn’t think this is worth mentioning. Instead, we see uncle Adolf going through a nervous breakdown because everything he dreamed of is collapsing. We see Frau Goebbels killing her children and herself because the great ideal of Nazism (aka National Socialism) is finished. We see honorable generals killing themselves rather than betraying everything they fought for. And when in the final credits we read that 50 million people were killed in WWII, it sounds totally out of context.
February 6, 2006
#3
I was looking for movie in German so that I would practice the language, but it is impossible. The English subtitles are preset all through the movie and it does not give me the option of turning them off. When the add said it was in German, I expected to be in German with no english subtitles. In my case it was a waste of money.
February 6, 2006
#4
This German film is an apologist’s tome. Hitler is portrayed as tottering, perhaps falling into a type of insanity. He refuses to believe that there are no more troops, relates his failures in the war to the cowardice of the German people instead of to his own failings, seems to take pride in his lack of education compared to that of the Officer corps, and so on. By portraying him as sick, one can say that this is not a moral lapse but a physiological one, and that is the problem here.
Goebbels and some of the others are painted with the brush of pure evil, but the film’s treatment of Hitler has no such clarity. With his gentle treatment of his beloved dog (until the end of the movie) and his relationship to his secretary, and to the Goebbels’ children, and to some others, the film is trying to emphasize a certain humanity in Hitler. But what’s the point.
The film appeared to try to lighten the load of this conflict from the point of view of the German people. It tried to say that Hitler was at heart a compassionate man, and when he did go off the deep end, it was his demons, not his will. It attempts to lighten the true nature of evil, and that is just plain wrong.
February 6, 2006
#5
When the movie arrived, the cd was moving around in the package. The plastic center ring holding the cd in place had broken off and the dvd could have gotten messed up. I haven’t played it yet, but otherwise things are good.