Downfall aka Der Untergang

I finally got to see the acclaimed 2004 film, Downfall, by Oliver Hirschbiegel today.

The film chronicles the last desperate days of April 1945 in Adolf Hitler's underground bunker, as the Red army close in. It is a meticulously researched inside view where you become privy to mysterious secrets, a clawing claustrophobia and the inevitable monumental unraveling.

Who will stay and face their doom?
Who will turn and run?
Who will gain insight?
Who will hang onto their delusions until the bitter end?

Hitler, in an amazing performance by Bruno Ganz, vacillates between a scorched-earth fatalism and grandiose visions of a never-to-be realized future, blaming everyone around him for his own collapse. Ganz portrays true madness, not movie villain madness. His range covers deep psychological dysfunctions, fatherly kindness, heartlessness, love, and all-encompassing rants against generals, Jews and the German people:

" If the war is lost, it is immaterial if the German people survive. I will shed not one tear for them."

It was his war, and they had let him down, he screams: betrayed him, lied to him, turned traitor.

For me the penultimate horrifying moment, more so than the underplayed suicide of Hitler and Eva Braun, was the tenderness with which Hitler poisons his dog, Blondi.

And then, the ultimate horror, which was unnerving and unimaginable and creates a lingering queasiness long after the film ends: The purest - which is to say the most pathological - expression of fidelity to the cause comes from Magda Goebbels (Corinna Harfouch). After serving up doses of a sleeping draught to her six children, she waits for them to fall asleep and then places a cyandide ampule gently into their mouths and presses their jaws firmly shut with a audible crunch as the cyanide is released. Following the children's death, she calmly plays a game of (perhaps symbolic) solitaire, then steps outside with her husband Joseph (Ulrich Matthes) who, with a linging gaze, shots her, then turns the pistol on himself.

I spent two weeks in one of my graduate classes studying theatre of the Holocaust (plays about it, and plays performed during it), and it was one of the most moving periods of my scholarly career. For the first time, all of the students were actively engaged, passionate, and had something to say. We were all assigned a "character" from the Nazi lineup, so when we ran across that individual as a character, or historically, we would have a "go-to" expert in the room. I was assigned Rudolf Hess, who is no where to be seen is this film. I bring this up because I have had a lot background to know who all of the players are in the film. The director does not succumb to filmic conceits such as teletype place names and dates scrolling on the screen, nor are the characters names announced. My point being that a good knowledge of the participants will make the unfolding a bit richer. I think, however, that even if you are not sure who these people are, you will still be very affected by the unfolding drama.

And just when you think all of the disturbing images have ended, during the credit roll, we are shown the brief biographies of many of the individuals from the bunker. Many of them lived a long life, certainly much longer than their victims.

Let Roger Ebert summarize:

All we can learn from a film like this is that millions of people can be led, and millions more killed, by madness leashed to racism and the barbaric instincts of tribalism.