Review of Downfall (1997) by Jeff H — 27 Jul 2012

I can't imagine a better film that follows Hitler and the Nazis in Berlin when they discovered their time was up. It starts out with the real life Traudl Junge saying she didn't know why she went in to work as Hitler's stenographer.

She wasn't a big Nazi or someone who really shared their beliefs. Looking back now she should have never went and just left the country instead. After this you'd expect the film to follow Junge more than anyone else.

But no, and I was glad my expectations were not what happened. We see her quite a bit throughout the film, but it's really about the true loyalists to Hitler. Junge is a tool to show the audience what it was like for someone who didn't truly understand what it was all about.

She saw Hitler as their leader, not some crazy killer. He was trying to make the country stronger. In the end she says she didn't know that he had killed so many people. She was oblivious to what happened to the Jews and other people he considered to be weak.

She understands this is not an excuse for working with him, but it lets us find some kind of connection with her. If not, the film would have been distant throughout and would have been a much different viewing experience.

The main part of Downfall takes place two days before Hitler committed suicide up until the day after. At 2 1/2 hours, it just seems to fly by. We are taken into the story of Junge, Hitler, Goebbels, Dr.

Haase, and many other people dedicated to Hitler. The picture above shows a scene when the Hitler Youth is congratulated by Hitler himself for taking out tanks and killing Russian soldiers that are trying to make their way into Berlin.

It's one of those scenes where you just realize that the filmmakers really wanted to give the audience the true experience of Hitler's last days and the mentality of the people around him. These kids aren't thinking about destroying Jews.

They want to build up Germany to be a stronger country. They've listened to Hitler's speeches long enough that they believe them. There's a scene where Hitler explains that the Jews are weak and they must be killed in order for Germany to be strong.

That's the whole point of the Nazis. Germany didn't get excited about some crazy guy killing Jews; they were defeated in the previous war and screwed over. They needed someone who could change everything.

What they didn't know what how awful everything would be. Downfall shows Berlin falling to rubble. Bombs are constantly going off, gunfire sounds outside and they can hear it all in their underground shelter.

One of Goebbels' kids says he enjoys the loud bombs that come from above, then he hears the gunshot that killed Hitler and it excites him. This was probably the filmmaker's own private celebration before he goes into the depression that it caused amongst everyone else in the film.

Hitler didn't want any private information out there, so he gave his important men poison that would kill them in a couple of seconds if they got caught. All they have to do is stick a tiny vial in their mouth and bite down.

For some people that wasn't enough. Even though they had the poison they also shot themselves. But the soldiers that survived wanted to keep fighting. One man went out to surrender to Eisenhower to save the men.

They would all die and there's no point to it all. He knew how loyal they would be to Hitler even after he died. The saddest scene in the film for me was when Goebbels' wife killed each of her children in their sleep with the poison.

It's sad, but it also makes you think that perhaps that was the best decision. Imagine if they survived what they would have been like, or what their kids would have been like. I know that's horrible to say, but I think that was probably the easiest route for them.

I guess what blew me away most was the way Oliver Hirschbiegel wasn't afraid to portray every single person in here as human. Hitler says the only way he could have done any of this was to take away all sentimentality within him.

He doesn't make Hitler out to be some evil force that's unexplainable. Everyone here is flesh and blood. Not many times do we imagines Nazis to be this way. Downfall does this in a brilliant way and it's what makes the film so masterful.