Review of Downfall (1997) by Reg A — 04 Dec 2009

Downfall is currently on TV (part of the Film4 movie channel's "war season") and depicts the last days of Hitler and his associates inside the Fuhrerbunker.

Outside the bunker is chaos, as the Russians advance on Berlin; German soldiers summarily judged as deserters are executed by nazi squads, and the "Thousand Year Reich" is reduced to young boys and old men. Everywhere one sees the wounded and dying.

Inside the bunker we see an increasingly deranged Hitler give orders that cannot be carried out, as events inexorably sends him, his wife Eva Braun, and his senior staff towards their collective fates. Bruno Ganz deserves thanks for bringing humanity to the inhuman Adolf Hitler. We see a man who is kind to his dog, yet divorced from the reality of the situation, while his staff are reduced to sycophants and hangers-on.

Downfall is magnificent and honest, yet it is also terrifying and brutal (as witnessed by Joseph and Magda Goebbels murdering their six children - a scene which chills to the bone).

But overall, Downfall is a necessary film, to warn us of the evil that man is capable of.