Review of Downfall (1997) by Matthew B — 29 Apr 2015

Nazism is one of the most frequently depicted political themes in cinematic history, and many of film history's most insensate villains (Conrad Veidt's Colonel Strasser, Peter O'Toole's General Tanz, Ralph Fiennes's Amon Goethe, Ronald Lacey's Toht, and Ian McKellen's Kurt Dussander) have sported a swastika- and Iron Cross-bedecked uniform. Hitler himself, however, has faired rather poorly throughout film history (despite his having been depicted variously by Sir Alec Guinness and Sir Anthony Hopkins, though, perhaps, most memorably by a sneering Michael Sheard in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade); few actors have ever bothered to tunnel through the fat of history to the ultimate humanity of the notorious chancellor.

Bruno Ganz accomplishes this task with undeniable perfection. Every Parkinson's-riddled twitch, every snarling outburst (his realization of Heinrich Himmler's betrayal is absolutely mortifying), and every glimmer of kindness (his treatment of the naive secretary Traudl Junge and his affection for Eva Braun, his adoration for his dog, his vegetarianism and the subtle quirkiness of his humor) all combine in a miraculously human imagining of recent history's most notorious villain - equally demonic in his flippant disregard for human suffering and pathetic in his inability to see beyond the rhetoric lathered around him. Ganz's genius, however thrilling, fails to overpower his supporting stars; Alexandra Maria Lara (a wonderfully new, fresh face as Traudl), Ulrich Matthes (physically portentous as Joseph Goebbels), Corinna Harfouch, Juliane Köhler (essentially the reincarnation of a young Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as Eva Braun), Michael Mendl, Rolf Kanies, and Christian Berkel form a solid cast. An agonizing, unforgettable portrait of an empire in its death throes.