Movies I have seen
Der Untergang (Downfall)
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel
Based on the books by Joachim Fest (Inside Hitler's Bunker), Traudl
Junge and Melissa Muller(Bisst zur letzten Stunde). Screenplay by Bernd
Eichinger.
Runing time: 156 min.
Native tongue: German. English subtitled.
Rating: USA-R.
In the final days of World War II we see Hitler (Brun Ganz), Eva Braun (Juliane Kohler), their closest generals, aides and 'friends' in the Berlin bunker. The story begins, and ends, with a voice-voer by Traudl Junge, Adolf Hitler's last stenographer.
The movie neither glorifies nor reduces the impact of war. Determining who is more insane during a time of mass-insanity is a constant conundrum. Is it Albert Speer (Heino Ferch) who cannot bear to tell his leader that their forces are losing, depsite the fact that Hitler continues to put all his hopes on a defeated army he can no longer control - moving forces that only exist on maps; or is it Joseph Goebbels (Ulrich Matthes) who apes his leader and refuses to hear him contradicted, even when there is nothing but faith on which to base his arguments.
The characters in the movie are based on those of real life. They are not monsters, but simply evil men and women. They worked together to create a horror that we can never forget, nor should we. Conflicting loyalties, mixed with a certainty of death that drives strong and courageous men to drink themselves stupid color this film. It is pyschologically dark and very derranged, but its horrors are known entities. To the history we all should know, this adds only a touch of drama and provides faces and words to the statistics and names.
The movie follows everything that Traudl Junge and Prof. Dr. Ernst-Gunter Schenck (Christian Berkel) saw during those final days. We see the stress building in the bunker until, one morning, Frau Junge walks through the messhall to see officers speaking to secretaries about how best to kill themselves. The conversation is a mix of noise as one man takes a butter knife to slash at his wrist, another takes his fingers and touches the soft-pallet of his mouth. When Frau Junge and Frau Gerda Christian (Birgit Minichmayr) learn that Hitler intends to shoot himself and Eva will take poision, they are compelled to ask for poison too and promise not to leave him. The shocking juxtaposition of the daily routine of life in the bunker mixed with the stress of the artillery, Berlin falling to the Russians. and Hitler refusing to believe it was over adds a tension and a drama to this film that difficult to discribe and certainly unmatched in any other film I've seen this year.
Prof. Dr. Ernst-Gunter Schenck is ordered out of Berlin, but refuses to go. He is in charge of seeing the hospitals stocked and the soldiers fed. He fears that leaving would mean the soldiers would take from the civilians. In the final days he is ordered to bring supplies to the hospital. He spends a day searching for the mobile hospital, and when he finds it, and the horrors he finds there - makes the Prof. Dr. simply more grim. He helps as best he can. The movie becomes grotesque with visions of limbs, hacked off and lying in a pan on the floor, the sound of the bone saw, and bloody bandages hiding shapes that were once attached to hands, feet, elbows, or knees.
Suicides fill this films final half hour. One guard, when told to come along, says no. Puts the pistol in his mouth and pulls the trigger, leaving a wet smear behind his head. Those sitting beside him neither jump at the sound, or move away from the dead body. The officer who gave the command merely straightens and walks away. We see the destruction of Berlin both from the exploding of buildings, and the anti-tank emplacements in the streets (manned by Hitler youth), to the destruction of individuals who would rather take their own lives than surrender.
The Russians are an ever-present, but almost never seen threat. When they do appear in the final moments of the movie, they are both monsters and saviors. Monsters because they are the threat the movie has been revolving around for almost two hours, and saviors because their presence means it is over.
The acting is superb. Occasional scenes had very little dialog, with the way people spoke and when they spoke almost more important than what they said. We see the hope, the crushing dispair, the destruction of a dream, and finally, the acceptance of defeat. It makes no excuses for the effects or events that preceed it, or follow it. Instead we see a Hitler who is gentle and polite with women, but a rampaging idiot who cannot be corrected by his generals and refuses to believe the truth until it is all but too late. That the madness continued for a time after Hitler's suicide shows only how insanely loyal his forces were.
There are a few suprises in the story, even for history buffs. The story cannot be said to have a happy ending, but it ends well enough - with Trauld Junge speaking. She admits to seeing the error of her times and her ways. Youth, she says, is no excuse for not knowing.
It is not an easy film to watch; but then again, I don't believe it was ment to be.
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