Sunday, September 23, 2007

Downfall - An amazing movie

Susmitha and I saw a fascinating German movie called 'Der Untergang' (Downfall) yesterday. This 2004 Best Foreign Language Oscar nominee chronicles the last days of the Third Reich through the eyes of Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge based on her book 'Until the Final hour' and 'Inside Hitler's Bunker' by Joachim Fest .

Though there have been several World War II movies in the past - indeed, WW2 might well be the most filmed 'event' in the Hollywood history - there probably are very few told from the perspective of the Nazis (I understand that even in Germany the Nazi period still evokes painful memories and hence has not been filmed that much.)

The story is told in a straight, linear narrative starting with the hiring of Junge by Hitler. It then quickly moves to Berlin in the Spring of 1945 with Germany in the brink of a catastrophic defeat. The rest of the film focuses almost exclusively on the life in the bunker where Hitler and his most trusted aides, staff and some of their family spend the remaining days of the war.

There are many aspects of the film that stood out for me. For one, it has been shot very realistically - from the claustrophobic bunkers to the sweeping shots on a crumbling city, all picturized in a dull/faded hue reminiscent of the still pictures of that era. Another factor that appealed to me was that the film is not preachy at all. It does not take sides. It is neither sympathetic to the Nazis nor is it critical of them. The film has been very consciously shot as a human story of what the people of Berlin went through in April 1945 as the Red Army was closing in.

There are several unforgettable scenes in the film. The one that tops them all is a heart-stopping sequence of the killing of her small children by Magda Goebbels. Mrs Goebbels does not want to have her children grow up in a 'world without Nazism' and decides to kill them before ending her life. The last part of the film has several such poignant sequences - from the heroic work of doctors in the bunker to the systematic ways of disposing dead SS officers bodies after they have committed suicide etc.

Bruno Ganz gives a tour-de-force performance as Hitler. He manages to - for me at least - humanize one of the most despicable men in history. Ganz manages to show Hitlers caring side (in the scene where he is having dinner with his cook and secretaries) and his menacing side (barking orders to his generals, his fits of rage over the lost cause etc) with equal aplomb.

I would strongly recommend this interesting film. If nothing else, it sheds light on a momentous time in the recent history, and for once tells the story from the vanquished's vantage point.