Downfall
A two-and-a-half-hour movie about Hitler and his diehard flunkies left me cold. What are the odds?
“Downfall,” released in the United States in 2005, is impressive, proficient moviemaking, and it certainly establishes director Oliver Hirschbiegel as a talent to watch. I rented it because I wanted to make sure I’d be justified in bashing Warner Bros. for taking “The Invasion” away from him, and I am. His style is quiet, observant, uninflected, and I’m certain his cut of “The Invasion” would have done a better job establishing mood and building atmosphere. What remains of that silly movie is little more than a series of chase sequences.
“Downfall” is remarkable largely for its seemingly realistic recreation of Hitler’s final days. We feel we are in the bunker, with its drab institutional lighting, its oddly homey touches and the raving lunatic with the square-shaped mustache barking ridiculous orders. But it offers little insight into the psychology of fantaticism, and the story isn’t organized around anything other than the war’s inevitable end. It’s told partially from the point of view of Hitler’s naive secretary, and while she’s a sympathetic figure, she’s mousy and passive. Juliane Kohler does strong work as Eva Braun, playing her as a desperate party girl; she’s like the inappropriate drunk who insists everybody’s having a great time when really they’re just uncomfortable.
Few characters make such strong impressions. One Nazi general is largely indistinguishable from the next. They all know Hitler’s bonkers, but they can’t bring themselves to challenge him. What’s strange is how little second-guessing the movie dramatizes. As Berlin falls, the diehard Nazis are consumed by fatalism, but few seem to question the devotion to the Third Reich that brought them to this point. Maybe this is accurate, but I’d have preferred some explanation of what kind of fascist dream they were holding onto. Because most of the military brass appear otherwise sane — they know the war is lost. Toward the end, they’re drunk all the time, because drinking is all they have left.
Of course, there are a couple of genuine psychopaths — Joseph Goebbels and his wife, Magda, who bring their six perfect Aryan children to the bunker and have them sing patriotic songs for Uncle Adolf. Then, in the movie’s most memorably horrifying scene, Mrs. G administers sedatives and cyanide capsules to her brood because she won’t allow them to live in a world without National Socialism.
Bruno Ganz gives Hitler his all, with the fits of spittle-flying rage and the tyrant’s delusional defiance (Saddam Hussein, through his spokesman, sounded a similar tone as Baghdad fell). He also shows an incongruous, quiet charm with the ladies. Yet he remains remote, unknowable. “Downfall” effectively recreates his suitably pathetic death: After he shot himself, Hitler’s body was quickly wrapped in a blanket, hauled outside the bunker, doused in gasoline and burned. Given that bringing him to justice would have been impossible, that seems about right.