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This! Reviews Downfall
'Downfall' - A
Different Perspective of Hitler
Why see this movie? Here are the answers...
By Rebecca Redshaw
History is written by the victors. Textbooks are
influenced by the powerful. And ultimately truth is
discerned by people who are willing to listen with an
open mind and learn beyond a time commitment of a news
scrawl or a thirty-second spot.
Thus, the movie Downfall, about the last days of
Adolph Hitler, presents a unique opportunity – a
different perspective to a page in history often
dismissed with a wave of a hand.
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, Downfall is
centered in the elaborate bunker in Berlin where Hitler,
Eva Braun, his court stenographer, Traudl Junge, and
numerous Nazi officers and soldiers reside. While the
approaching Russian soldiers bomb the city and kill or
capture civilians that remain, the powers of the Third
Reich unravel in the claustrophobic tunnels.
It’s Junge’s voice [Alexandra Maria Lara] that narrates
the story. In her twenties, she remains until all hope
is lost. She is closer to Hitler than most, documenting
his memos and dining with him and a few others.
Hitler refused to allow himself to appear vulnerable, so
his historic image is preserved in political arenas
orating to large crowds. A rare, and unauthorized,
recording of him speaking conversationally was
discovered not long ago, allowing a glimpse into his
personal demeanor. It’s that eleven minute tape that
actor Bruno Ganz studied to portray the private man.
Hitler’s advanced state of Parkinson’s disease was also
evident in Ganz’s trembling hand.
Because a number of the people in the bunker survived
imprisonment or escaped, the script is not wholly the
imagination of the scriptwriters. Historical events have
been documented and verified and tragically imaged in
Downfall. The most devastating being the murder of
the Goebbels’ children by their mother, Magda.
If one is a thinking person, one has to question why.
Why was Hitler given so much power and followed by so
many people? Why did Eva Braun [Juliane Köhler] marry a
man like Adolph Hitler? Why did a young stenographer
from Munich survive the insanity of the bunker when so
many others were murdered or committed suicide?
But, the most immediate question is why see this movie?
Downfall
is an important glimpse into a troubled time, a
devastating story, brilliantly told in possibly the only
medium that could do it justice – film.
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