Downfall

I watched Downfall last night. Though pretty grueling (178 mins - almost 3 hours long), the film is fantastic.

The film charts the last 10 days of the Nazi regime in Berlin. Bruno Ganz brilliant plays an increasingly deluded Hitler, who literally falls apart in front of your eyes throughout the film. The story is told in part through the eyes of Traudl, Hitlers young secretary, who's performance is also great.

This was a difficult film for me to watch, finding myself starting to sympathize with Hitler at certain points - particularly when he interacts with Traudl and also when his delusion escalates towards the end of the film, claiming that letting the russians invade Berlin has been part of a grand plan.. and inventing auxiliary forces that will "break through", despite knowing they are outnumbered 10 to 1.
However this is all turned around when he starts talking about the final solution and how compassion is for the weak.

Eva, his wife alludes to this devision when she talks about him being split between Adolf and "the fuhrer". Hitler seems like a stubborn child and yet horrifically ruthless at times.

The film is strangely sterile - the majority of the plot unfolds indoors and in Hitlers bunker, mimicking how isolated Hitler is, in mind and also physically. The consequences of his refusal to evacuate civilians from Berlin, and the atrocities he sanctioned in the concentration camps are detached from these final days.. and any glimpses we are given of the struggle for Berlin on the outside seem disconnected from the film and almost ethereal.


As I said before, the portrayal of Hitler is brilliant - Even Ganz's voice is perfect, he emulates Hitler's voice and it's ability to contort the German language into something disgusting and angular in sound. His ability to provoke sympathy for a figure such as Hitler is nothing short of astounding.

It is a film that is strangely full of anti-climax, despite describing momentous events, Hitler finally gives in and commits suicide. Once dead he is almost more human than the monster he was alive, as his sad, tiny body is carried outside and burned with his wife.


In short a brilliant film, and beautifully filmed.. Don't expect a warm fuzzy feeling afterwards though, it's bleak and it gets more so towards the end. Traudl's testimony at the end is a harrowing reminder that inactivity is just as bad as pro-activity.