Downfall

The last twelve days of Adolf Hitler are depicted in the potent German/Austrian film Downfall (Der Untergang) from director Oliver Hirschbiegel. Based upon a series of books and memoirs, this movie takes place almost entirely within the bunker in which Hitler would take his own life and highlights the demented passion of the crumple of the Nazi regime in Berlin.

Downfall broke one of the last remaining cinema taboos regarding the depiction of Nazism in its portrayal of Adolf Hitler in a central role by a German-speaking actor. In this case, Bruno Ganz played Hitler to great critical acclaim. Prior to Ganz’s rendering, footage of Hitler had greatly served to denote his presence for the most part. As news of the role came to light, the press began to fittingly question the idea behind the film. Much was made about whether or not Ganz had made Hitler too sensitive or, perhaps more precisely, too human.

As voyeurs, we are granted entrance into Hitler’s inner sanctum by Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara), a woman hired by Hitler to be a secretary. Junge wrote a memoir about her experiences with the Führer and is featured at the beginning and end of the film describing her sentiment that she should have done more to make herself aware as to what he was really up to. Instead, Junge was awed by the influence of her employer.

Downfall uses her interpretation of the swirling and paradoxical forces of insanity, psychosis, thoughtfulness, and modesty that comprised her vision of Adolf Hitler.

As we enter the world of the bunker, a claustrophobic sense of things sets in. The walls are gray, drab. The air feels stiff. Hitler is surrounded continuously by men of equal force to his and he struggles to maintain order among a crew of dissenters, liars, and realists. The Führer lost his war, but the film captures his continued attempts to wage it in daydream. Scenes unfold showing him trouncing on maps and forcing nameless troops to locations that no longer matter.

Downfall captures the devastation and the final plunge into lunacy of Adolf Hitler with care, relating a human story behind the history books that is sure to provide the viewer some discomposure. Here, the madman is given a human face. In an opening scene, we see him as a rather kind individual hiring a secretary. He is good to his dog. It all becomes rather provoking, as Hirschbiegel torments us with the illogicality: Adolf Hitler is a human being but at the same time he cannot be. Humans can’t be that wicked, can they?

This movie doesn’t dissipate time attempting to explain what this distraught madman did. No film can cover that ground sufficiently and any attempt to do so would be discourteous. Instead, Downfall gives us the fall of the Third Reich as the story of the individuals who strove to hold it up. It is the story of Hitler, but it is also the story of Joseph (Ulrich Matthes) and Magda (Corinna Harfouch) Goebbels and their allegiance to National Socialism that is so strong that they kill their own children. It is the story of Eva Braun (Juliane Köhler) and her obsession with Hitler.

Downfall forces its audience to regard this lunatic and his operation without recoiling and without turning away. Ganz creates a Hitler that is so unspeakably authentic and so oddly human that it is truly a sight to behold. He inhabits the monster without uncertainty, replicating his tenor and speech with precision. It is true that Ganz’s Hitler looks older than the Führer was at the time of his death (Hitler was 56, Ganz was 62), but the aged look adds a more crippling sense of heaviness to the historical figure.

Hirschbiegel’s film is tough to watch because it ought to be. At a time in history in which the world faced profound malevolence and despondency, the disinclination to view the atrocity of the Third Reich as anything other than a sadistic force is comprehensible. But with the passage of time comes the passage of unprocessed emotion. While some wounds never heal, Downfall provides those of us with a curiosity through the sting to examine the figure of Adolf Hitler with steadfast eyes and open minds.

Here, he is not presented as a man to be understood. He is not presented as a man to commiserate with. Rather, he is presented here as a figure to be pitied for his wretched subsistence. And, perhaps most decisively of all, he is presented as a figure who most surely did not act alone. But for the tacit and fervent approval of many, the Third Reich and Nazism never would have risen in the world.

As Traudl Junge reminds us at the end of Downfall, there is no reason to be blind to history.

Trailer: