IMAGINE WHAT A FILM about the fall of Berlin would look like if it were produced by Roland Emmerich (Godzilla) and directed by Michael Bay (Armageddon). Maybe Liv Tyler could play the secretary, Traudl Junge. Ben Affleck could be SS doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck, trying to save the lives of hundreds of men and boys in a makeshift hospital without breaking a sweat. And of course who else could play Hitler but Jon Voight?
In other words, the fall of Berlin was bad enough. But a movie about it poorly done--albeit with amazing special effects--could be much worse. Which is why the German film Downfall is all the more remarkable. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and starring actors most Americans haven't heard of, Downfall follows Hitler and several other bunker "inmates" during the final days of the Third Reich. The movie has received kudos (including an Oscar nomination for best foreign film) because of its historical accuracy--at least in its adherence to the details in both Traudl Junge's Until the Final Hour and historian Joachim Fest's Inside Hitler's Bunker.
But equally crucial is Bruno Ganz's portrayal of Adolf Hitler, not as a "caricature of evil," as some critics note, but as a charismatic figure who, despite his world falling apart, was still capable of hypnotizing his followers and making them believe victory was imminent. At the same time, Ganz's Hitler is haggard, frail, and increasingly given to meltdowns and tirades--almost exclusively directed towards his generals. To the women and children, the Führer was kind and
fatherly. In the situation conferences, Hitler was a brilliant tactician who slipped into madness and, by April of 1945, was directing armies that existed only on his maps. It is in playing this multifaceted character so precisely that Ganz, an accomplished actor both on stage and screen, succeeds and possibly even surpasses Alec Guinness's and Anthony Hopkins's portrayals of the German leader.
Sixty years after the Red Army conquered Berlin, Germans are still wary of dealing with their dark past. "Can we actually show Hitler [in Downfall] in such a human light? And should we?" asked one German. Unsurprisingly, the film has sparked great discussion in Germany about how one should portray Hitler. Clearly any movie, no matter how grim, demands a protagonist. But does the star of Downfall necessarily become the man we root for in his struggle against the evil forces of Bolshevism? The answer (to everyone's relief) is no. Ganz as Hitler, even with a soft touch, is still a megalomaniacal dictator with little regard for life. The person we do find sympathetic is Traudl Junge, the young secretary who worked for Hitler without knowing (so she claims) about the atrocities committed against all of civilization. (It also helps that Junge is played by the stunningly gorgeous Alexandra Maria Lara.) Another "positive" role is that of Dr. Ernst-Günther Schenck, whose main concern is saving lives and putting a stop to the madness. (In one scene, Schenck defies his superiors and enters a supposedly abandoned hospital, only to find it is the medical staff that has abandoned a crowd of elderly Germans who have been left behind to die.)
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