HAMSTER RATING:

As a society, everybody hates the Nazis, what they stood for, and especially hates their infamous leader, Adolf Hitler. Even 60 years after his death, it is impossible to take any kind of objective look at the man or his policies and not face criticism and suspicion for doing so. Look at what happened when Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for governor of Cal-ee-fornia and a story began circulating that his father had been a Nazi, or even just a Nazi sympathizer. It didn’t stop him from getting elected, but it created a media mess as Ahnold had to release statement after statement denouncing Hitler and his policies. But at least, here in America, we do that much. In Germany, until very recently, the whole subject was taboo. I’m reminded of an episode of Family Guy in which Brian (the family dog) and Stewie (the genius talking baby) are on a tour bus in Germany and Brian notices that his brochure on German history has no entry for the years between 1933 and 1945. When Brian asks the friendly tour guide why there’s no mention of those 12 years, the tour guide responds quite irritably that there was nothing of interest that happened. When Brian tries to dispute this, the guide cuts him off, screaming like a classic SS stereotype that absolutely nothing noteworthy occurred during that time and to stop bringing it up.

Fortunately, German director Oliver Hirschbiegel has been more forthcoming, allowing Germany to acknowledge its infamous past in his historical drama, Der Untergang (Downfall, in English).

Hitler's serious face.

Based on the book Der Untergang by Joachim Fest and Until the Final Hour by Traudl Junge, this movie carefully depicts the final days of Hitler and his Nazi regime. For as much as audiences already know about Hitler and the state of things at the end of WWII, Hirschbiegel uses his material to craft a gentler, more reflective picture than one might expect. Hitler is introduced to Traudl (and us) in 1942 as she and several other unsuspecting girls are brought into Hitler’s small headquarters to interview for a secretary post. The girls, including Traudl, are understandably uptight when the combed-over and mustachioed leader of the Nazi party shuffles out of his office to make his selection, but as he puts Traudl through a typing exercise, he acts the part of a patient, friendly old man. But fast-forward to 1945 when the German army is in shreds and Hitler and his staff have retreated to a bunker beneath ravaged Berlin, and we see the old man swing full throttle into the red-faced, apoplectic maniac who subjugated most of Europe. But the downfall of Hitler—although it is significant—is just one (and the best) of several storylines worked into the movie.

A key subplot involves Dr. Shenck, an SS medic who remains in Berlin to help the civilians of the war, and there is another that tells of the plight of Peter, a member of the Hitler’s Youth program who blows up Allied tanks, something that later earns him a medal from the Fuhrer. While the Shenck and Peter stories help to illustrate how things are going for the Nazis outside the bunker, neither of them possesses much dramatic punch. The Shenck subplot in particular doesn’t really further the story, merely serving the function of pointing out that Not All Nazis Were Monsters, a point made just as well by Traudl, Hitler’s decidedly un-evil secretary. The Peter story, since it follows a child, is more enthralling to watch as he responds to the violence that kills his peers in the trench and must brave the shelled streets of Berlin, but it does have the slightly tacked-on feeling of something added in just to make the audience go, “Wow, war is terrible!”

Hitler's happy face.

From the perspective of an American moviegoer, Der Untergang is about as impressive as a well-done History Channel documentary. Had this film been made in the U.S. of A, there would probably have been a lot more time and CGI devoted to the shelling of Berlin, and the few scenes of war carnage the film does have would have had more blood and gore. But the casting is excellent, and their work shines even brighter in contrast to the unremarkable production values.

Alexandria Maria Lara looks and acts the part of wide-eyed Traudl Junge with quiet intensity, whose character is expanded by her voice over narration as an old woman looking back on events. Actress Juliane Kohler plays Eva Braun, Hitler’s wife, as a superficial party girl, apparently in some kind of denial about what is going on around her. She functions to try and lift everyone out of there gloom and despair over Germany’s imminent loss, and never seems personally troubled by any of it, not even when she and her husband of a few hours, Adolf Hitler, decide to commit suicide. She’s never allowed much depth, and results as an even harder person to understand than Hitler, who is given a virtuoso treatment by Bruno Ganz (who not only acts like Hitler, but actually looks a lot like him, too). Ganz takes Hitler through sweeping mood changes from mild to manic, creating a portrait of the dictator as someone who was insane and feared by some of the most heinous lackeys in the universe, and also a world-weary human being. At times you could almost—almost—like this Hitler (except for the world conquering and genocide). But even more chilling are the ever-loyal Goebbels, Magda (Corinna Harfouch) and Joseph (Ulrich Matthes). Matthes is the picture of the robotic, stone-faced Nazi, but it’s Harfouch’s portrayal of Magda that steals the show, a woman so terrified at the thought of living without her god of National Socialism that she is driven to infanticide, a scene that will turn everyone’s blood to ice.

Hitler's thoughtful face.

Running over two hours in length, Der Untergang drags in spots, mostly because it is so unrelentingly depressing. The humor that is very lightly sprinkled in is mostly dark, revolving around the drunken revelry of Nazi guards convinced of their doom. The majority of the film takes place below ground in the surprisingly extensive bunkers below Berlin, whose low ceilings, flickering lights and pale-colored cinderblock emphasize the movie’s seeping feeling of desperation, and it is filled with little moments that help bring out the humanity of these larger-than-life historical figures without necessarily asking the audience to sympathize with them. As a whole, it is no better or worse than most of the recent films about WWII, and its biggest selling point is mostly the fact that it is the first movie about Hitler and Nazis to be made by Germans since 1956. Its historical accuracy is another plus (though I still wonder how much of the Hitler storyline is fact vs. creative license), and even for those who know the history of the Third Reich backwards and forwards, nothing can quite compare to the experience of hearing it in the original language.