Madness at the End
Movie Review of 'Downfall'
Volume four, Issue 7 | February 17-23,
2005
FILM
DOWNFALL
Directed
by Oliver Hircshbiegel
NewMarket
Films
Opens Feb.
18
Film Forum
Madness at the
End
Oliver
Hirschbiegel looks to eyewitnesses in Hitler’s final bunker
days
By SETH J.
BOOKEY
Cultures often deal with their
pasts, glorious or otherwise, with
spectacles.
In ancient Rome, the battle
of Actium was once recreated, ships and all, for a cheering
audience.
In the new German movie,
“Downfall,” the final 12 days of Hitler and his Third Reich are
chronicled, also in a “spectacle” fashion, but not in a way meant to
entertain, but rather to examine. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel recreates the
internal madness of the people in the bunker, while outside the Red Army
encircles Berlin, closing in on Hitler in house-to-house battles, with the city
falling into
chaos.
“Downfall” is based on
two sources. One is Joachim Best’s book, “Inside Hitler’s
Bunker” and the other is the personal account by Hitler’s secretary,
Traudl Junge, who also appeared in the documentary “Blind Spot,” two
years ago, shortly before her death. While the Junge character opens and closes
the film, it is difficult to see her as the figure that keeps it all together,
as the director intended. What unifies the movie is instinct followed by many of
the top Nazi officers, taking Hitler’s lead, to fall back on their
fanaticism to comfort themselves as everything outside
disintegrates.
Hirschbiegel goes to
painstaking detail to show the disarray that was Berlin in April 1945. Whole
city blocks are bombed out, defended by hapless, unarmed Germans. Meanwhile,
inside the bunker, there’s good food and champagne to help Der Fuhrer
celebrate his birthday, keeping up the facade that everything will work out. In
the 12 days shown in “Downfall,” Hitler remains convinced that
reinforcements are on their way to salvage the situation. Advisers and friends
tell him to flee, but he refuses. Hitler shows no sympathy for the Germans
outside, saying what’s happening is somehow their own fault, as he
catalogues a wide array of enemies, most particularly, of course, the
Jews.
Films about Nazi Germany during World War
II have been plentiful lately, but what sets “Downfall” apart is
that it is the most ambitious cinematic treatment of Hitler himself in the
bunker during the final days since G.W. Pabst’s 1956 “Der Letste
Akt” (“The Last Act”).
Hitler
at first comes across almost as a pitiable character, until he starts ranting.
In the bunker’s claustrophobia, we witness everyone’s reactions to
Hitler—those acting oblivious, others incredulous at the denial, and some,
like Goebbels and his wife, who are fanatical and “cannot imagine a world
without National Socialism.” What they can imagine, however, is what will
happen to them if the Allies catch
them.
Hirschbiegel faithfully recreates
the final days of the Third Reich and populates the screen with an excellent
cast, led by Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler. Ganz studied a rare tape of Hitler in
conversation, versus Hitler at the podium, and gives a textured performance,
showing both Der Fuhrer as well as a beleaguered old man. But most of all, Ganz
captures Hitler’s inability to deal with the realities of the war.
Whenever someone disappears or surrenders, he bellows, “It’s the
worst betrayal of all.” Juliane Kohler plays Hitler’s mistress, Eva
Braun, faithful to the end.
Much of the movie
tracks the eyewitness testimony of his secretary, Junge (played by Alexandra
Maria Lara), who also remains loyal, taking down Hitler’s final political
statement and his last will and testament. In many ways, Junge is a stand-in for
the German people, sorting out the dilemma of fidelity versus their own personal
salvation.
We also see 13-year-old Peter
(Donevan Gunia) trying to defend Berlin with a rocket launcher, but eventually
forced to realize resistance is futile. An SS doctor (played by Christian
Berkel) wants to help the remaining Berliners as best he can, and yet finds
himself bound to follow ridiculous
orders.
The best performance is delivered
by Corinna Harfouch, who plays Goebbels’ wife. She arrives with six of
their children to wish “Uncle Hitler” a happy birthday in what
appears to be the last safe place in Berlin. When their escape become
impossible, this latter-day Medea poisons all six of her children in what is the
most difficult portion of the film. As she forces a sleeping potion on her
oldest daughter, the audience wriggles painfully with
her.
Frau Goebbels’ sick devotion
to duty is mirrored outside the bunker. Some Berliners prefer to get drunk and
hold orgies, but others are punishing their fellow citizens for aiding the
Russians by hanging them on lampposts, even as shells are blowing apart nearby
buildings.
Hirschbiegel does a great job of
capturing the confinement of the bunker and the bleakness that was Berlin in the
final days. We rarely see any sunlight in this film, and the only optimistic
moments are in the final scenes, before we see a clip of the real Traudl Junge
from “Blind
Spot.”
Hirschbiegel’s film provides
compelling viewing, because despite knowing thoroughly how the story ends,
we’re seeing things here that only eyewitnesses knew. “The Last Ten
Days,” from 1973 and 1981’s “The Bunker” explored this
story, but “Downfall” best captures the terror everyone must have
felt being in close quarters with Hitler at the end. Only the sources material,
in Blind Spot,” with Traudl Junge on screen for two hours telling us her
story, gives us more of an undiluted account of what actually happened in that
bunker. But as non-documentary “Hitler” movies go,
“Downfall” is truly one of the best, leaving viewers
awed.
Posted: Thu - February 17, 2005 at 11:00 PM