The Downfall

I saw Oliver Hirschbiegel's The Downfall (Der Untergang) today, a movie based on Nazi Germany's final days. Specifically, the movie chronicles the period between Hitler's 56th birthday on April 20th*, 1945, and his suicide ten days later, mostly through the eyes of Traudl Junge, his wartime secretary (played by the heart-poundingly beautiful Alexandra Maria Lara). As Soviet troops encircle and demolish Berlin, you see stories of local resistance, panic, and betrayal play out in the city, while an isolated group of top-level Nazis (Hitler, Goebbels, Speer, etc.) and their adjutants and families ensconced in an underground bunker spend a lot of time contemplating their fate (and regularly absolving themselves of responsibility for what is happening outside).

I generally avoid movies that run longer than two hours, because I can't sit still in a theater that long without an intermission, and my attention span is short. Plus, if a particular film turns out to be lousy, I'd rather think I only spent less than two hours watching it. The Downfall clocks in at two and a half hours, but it didn't feel long or lousy at all. I was entranced almost the entire time, from beginning to end. Bruno Ganz, who portrays Hitler, has received much critical commendation, and it doesn't take long to see why. I've seen my share of historical dramatizations, and I'd say that without a doubt Ganz pulls off the single greatest on-screen impersonation of a historical figure that I have ever seen. Unlike, say, George C. Scott playing General Patton, there are no artistic liberties being taken here - at least none that I can tell - in how Hitler behaves, both publicly and privately. In fact, if the film had any major weakness, it was that it suffered when Ganz wasn't on-screen thanks to the singularity of his performance. The other aspect I had trouble with was the obvious exposition at the beginning of the film, but for a historical drama, it's a necessary evil.

One thing I didn't realize until the end of the film is that almost all of the minor characters in the film (with only one or two exceptions) are historical figures, too. I also didn't realize how many of these people were still living until the last few years or so (and, in at least one case, is still alive).

Seeing the movie reminded me of Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism, which I read last year. Berman's chief focus is Islamic fundamentalism, but he draws numerous parallels with facism, even going so far as to suggest that much of the ideology behind Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco, survives intact in the Middle East today, having never been extinguished as it was in Europe. Bermans puts forward a number of thought-provoking (if occasionally half-formed) theories about why entire populations will follow leaders or ideologies mindlessly ("mass psychosis"), and how it can begin to look normal to the people around them. This is true not only of one's neighbors in the local sense, but even geopolitically, and Berman makes a good case for why (for example) France didn't react with more alarm to Hitler's rise, rhetoric, and actions during the 1930s. He invokes this example to help explain why otherwise intelligent, open-minded people today can find ways to rationalize (even while not condoning, or justifying) various forms of terrorism.

Unfortunately, The Downfall is only playing in a handful of theaters nationwide. I live in New York City, and only the Film Forum (the most fervently "professional" of the many, many art house theaters in the city) is screening it, and not for long. So it's doubtful many people will see it, at least in the USA. But if you have any interest in history at all, I recommend it. Berman's book is good reading, too.

I just found two official sites for the film: http://www.downfallthefilm.com/ and http://www.the-downfall.com/

* Yes, today is also April 20th, but this is a coincidence. When you only work a few days a week, you tend to lose track of the date, and I didn't even realize today was April 20th until several hours after seeing the film. I probably would have stayed away if I had realized the significance of the date, although this being NYC, the neo-Nazi population is pretty thin...