DER UNTERGANG / DOWNFALL (2004)
Direction: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Cast: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Juliane Köhler, Corinna Harfouch, Ulrich Matthes, Heino Ferch, Thomas Kretschmann
Screenplay: Bernd Eichinger; from Joachim Fest's book Untergang: Hitler und das Ende des Dritten Reiches / Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich and Traudl Junge and Melissa Müller's Bis zur letzten Stunde / Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary
Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler in Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall
Oliver Hirschbiegel's German box-office hit Der Untergang / Downfall is a generally effective war drama, whose emotional power is marred by excessive length, an overabundance of characters, and a certain tendency to emphasize the more obvious aspects of the story.
In Downfall, which by the end of 2004 had ad been seen by more than 4.5 million German filmgoers, Nazi Germany is about to lose the war. In his underground bunker, Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz) grows increasingly out of touch with reality as he sees his dream of Deutschland über alles go totally kaput. Some of those under his command are equally incapable of thinking coherently; they have been so (willingly) brainwashed that they would rather face death than a world without National Socialism. Up above, in the streets of Berlin, the German people are left to fend off for themselves as the Russian troops approach.
Narrative and directorial slips notwithstanding, veteran Bruno Ganz is by himself worth the price of admission. Ganz (the fallen angel in Wim Wenders' Der Himmel über Berlin / Wings of Desire) does an outstanding Hitler impersonation, going beyond the usual movie caricatures and superficial mannerisms to convey an actual human being deeply corroded by hatred and delusions of grandeur.
Many of the supporting players are below par, but Heino Ferch is a solid presence as Albert Speer; Aimee & Jaguar's Juliane Köhler, even if underused, is a superb Eva Braun; while Corinna Harfouch's Magda Goebbels is a perfect representation of the human propensity for psychopathic fanaticism. Stephan Zacharias' somber score adds the appropriate mood to the horrors and the destruction shown on screen.
Especially moving and illuminating is the final interview with the real Traudl Junge (played as a young woman by Alexandra Maria Lara), in which Hitler's former secretary explains that claiming ignorance is no excuse for one's complicity — whether tacit or active – in the horrors of Nazism. A lesson worth learning over and over again, as crimes against humanity continue to take place throughout the world literally every day.
Note: A version of this Downfall review was initially posted in March 2005.