Downfall

[Tholzel]

The Downfall (Der Untergang) By Tom Holzel, www.velocitypress.com This is at least the third movie made of Trevor Roper’s sensational book The Last Days of Hitler. It is the first significant film about Hitler made by a German film company. That Germans had to wait 60 years is an indication of the traumatic power of the Hitler legend. Alec Guiness played Hitler reasonably well in one British version of that episode. But scriptwriters could not prevent themselves from declaring their liberal bona fides by adding unhistorical baggage. Guiness as Hitler is required to deliver a diatribe to his new bride about the weakness of women moments before the only witnesses to this speech kill themselves. And what is their point? Women played a far more prominent role in the upper echelons of Nazi society than the they did in US and Britain’s ruling classes. (Witness Hannah Reitsch, a young female test pilot, and Leni Riefenstahl, the brilliant young female cinematographer of Hitler’s Olympics and Nurnberg rally.) This need to add ideological declarations is nearly always indulged when subjects of extreme emotional content are produced. This is why, so far, no one has made a convincing movie about Jesus Christ. In both cases, directors have the impossible task of separating the man from the myth. Downfall producers do not fall into that error. Many will find the human Hitler in this film difficult to reconcile with his evil mythic stature. Like Christ, Hitler was a human turned into a god. In Christ’s case it was by his supporters; in Hitler’s case it was by his enemies. As Christians’ have made a sacrificial human a symbol of their religion, so have many Jews incorporated the murderous dictator into a symbol of evil, far more potent than any positive aspect of their religion. But religious ideologues can’t have it both ways: If Hitler was not a god, then he was a human and must be portrayed as one. To complain that the film “humanizes” him is an attempt to have one’s cake and eat it. The producers of The Downfall made a number of brilliant editorial decisions. The film makes no claims about why anything happened. It just shows what happened. Crucially, nothing is explained. The viewer is a witness to the many surreal vignettes played out in the final days of WW-II. With this essentially neutral portrayal of a man who is both kindly and a raving lunatic, the usual cadre of critics who feel they alone own Hitler (it is much more than a cottage industry) are left speechless. To add further complexity, one of the quiet heroes of the film is an SS medical officer. This nuance will clash against the shibboleth that all SS men were the sadistic concentration camp guards instead of the Swiss Guards of Hitler’s megalomania. If there is a criticism that can be made against the film, it is that too many of Hitler’s generals were reasonable men, professional soldiers, and still honor-bound to a madman’s captivating aura. Yes, the German General Staff was comprised of classically educated noblemen of a caliber that will never again lead a nation’s military. But surely they were not all so resolutely noble, regal and handsome. OK, there were a two fatties—Göring and Bormann—but they are clearly as evil as they are overweight. The supporting women are expertly cast, particularly Eva Braun—more of a party girl than one images (and with a subtle nod to her possible affair with General Fegalein), as well as Magda Goebbels. Frau Goebbels is an icy beauty, as fascinating as the stare of a cobra. Her methodical poisoning of their six children is one of the most sickening moments in film. Watching this gruesome story unfold is like traveling back to the bunker in a time machine. With stories of the horrors of the Holocaust long since dulled by saturation, it is shocking to witness the catastrophic violence of the death throes of Berlin. Death in the camps was a smoothly humming assembly line; death in Berlin was sudden and always capricious—a deafening cacophony of artillery shells, tank fire, collapsing buildings and the whistle and thud of small arms bullets. Fresh body parts litter this urban moonscape. In the end, The Downfall comes closer than any film or book in portraying convincingly the dissolution of Hitler, the genius psychopath who was able to lead a nation—and himself--down a path of utter destruction. Scenes of officer suicide in the face of Russian advances are realistically portrayed (and evoke echoes of Masada). And yet, still, Hitler’s hold on the psyche of a nation is not fully understandable. We see what happened; that his followers thought him truly a god. But how—really—did that happen? And could it happen to us? Brilliant as the film is in depicting the dying days of a brilliant madman expiring in his lair, yet something more is needed to make us understand the “why” of it. Perhaps, like all religious conversions, the reasons for such a thrall can never be understood. They can only be experienced.