Downfall
[Author’s prologue: As anyone who knows my fiance will attest, she loves “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” She can quote the movie in her sleep. When it seemed like AMC ditched their entire December schedule in favor of repeating this movie on a loop, it was as though her prayers had been answered. And I was pretty damn sure that we’d end up watching it last night.
So you can probably imagine her surprise when, during this Yuletide season of mirth and merriment, I suggested we watch a two and a half hour movie about the last days of Hitler’s bunker. Her excitement was ratcheted up even further when she realized that it was a German movie… and subtitled. But she was a damn good sport and took the plunge with me. Don’t be surprised if my next review is something decidedly more saccharine.]
“Downfall,” or “Der Untergang”, is a film that chronicles the last days of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich as they contemplate and begin to deal with the end of World War II. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, the movie unfolds slowly and methodically as, one by one, Hitler’s last chances for victory or survival are done away with. Bruno Ganz’s Hitler swings between moments of insanity-fueled delusion (proclaiming to his generals that he has dozens of armies just waiting to taken down the Russians) and acceptance (where we see him consulting a doctor on how precisely he can take his own life).
Though the acting was superb, it was hard not to laugh during scenes of a mustachioed Ganz coming totally unglued; screaming for executions and retribution while under siege in his bunker (It was a great performance). Throw in an unbelievably creepy portrayal of Joseph Goebbels (by Ulrich Matthes) and wide-eyed, eager-to-die groupie Eva Braun (Juliane Kohler), and you have a pretty compelling cast of characters.
As a film, it’s a very heavy watch. With it’s washed out coloring, slow and deliberate (and tight) camera shots, it deftly creates the mood and emotion of being trapped in a bunker. We also experience the schizophrenic psyche of the fading Reich, from Eva Braun and her wild parties ‘neath falling bombs, to Goebbel’s choir of children singing patriotic songs about the Fatherland, as the Russians trample the German army.
Most fascinating is the delicate treatment of the people themselves; depicting “humanity” in the most inhuman of people. I suspect this was a very important and controversial film for German audiences; reconciling themselves with their past, in a very personal way. I cannot be totally certain, but would suspect that todays’ Germans are probably most familiar with American depictions of the Nazi party, as one-dimensional monsters worthy of death. So, how do the Germans relate to the demons of their past?
The filmmaker lays the characters bare, allowing us to see them as people and not just characters from the history pages. Though this is an approach that, likely, could be criticized as flattering, it isn’t. That last dimension adds an extra element of horror to the proceedings, and probably answered a question that beguiles Germans: “Who are these people?” I assume holding up a mirror to these monsters of history, and allowing new generations of Germans to see these men and women as real people and, yes, humanizing them, is probably more chilling than you would expect.
(B-)