This afternoon I went to see "Downfall" with my friends Al and Simon. It's the story of the last days of Hitler and despite a few caveats I would say it's fucking great. Stick that on your poster. Go and see it.
Ignore the complaints that it humanises Hitler. Firstly, Hitler was a human being which means there is no need to humanise him. He wasn't a very nice human being judged by any normal moral yardstick, but that doesn't mean he wasn't capable of being charming or likeable at times. After all he was democratically elected by a large European country. People who want to portray Hitler as a grotesque, evil monster are missing the point, which is that despicable people are not like ogres from fairy tales. They can be kind to animals and self-effacing and supportive to secretaries.
Secondly the film does not make you sympathetic to the Chancellor Nazi Germany. He comes across as a deluded, insane megalomaniac, who blames anyone but himself for the problems he has suffered and who has nothing but disdain for the people who elected him. Suddenly deprived of the power he had enjoyed for over ten years you see him for what he is, a horrible, snivelling bully and coward, so caught up in his own insane and hateful ideas that he has no conscience about the terrible repercussions of his unbending faith in himself. He has no humanity, but alas he is still human.
Yet it is the reactions and blinkered loyalty of the majority of the people around him that is truly terrifying. National Socialism was a religion to them and Hitler was their Messiah and many of them see no point in carrying on living once he is gone. They are unable to conceive of a future without him, so much have they invested in believing in this man. They kill themselves and their children rather than having to live in a post-Nazi world. It's powerful stuff, but one that makes you question your own beliefs as well as acknowledging the fragility of every culture and society. We are obviously, as humans, susceptible to getting to a point where a belief is more important than life itself. The fervour of the Nazis and of all belief systems based on blind faith is a terrifying and dangerous phenomenon, that no doubt will at some point bring about, at least the decimation of the human race, if not it's total destruction.
Yet the film was grimly comic too. Seeing these once strong men reduced to shambling and confused shadows made you understand the essential artifice of the concept of power. The way that the army kept up all its ridiculous little traditions to the end: soldiers snapping their heels and saluting even as the world was collapsing around them. The generals being afraid to tell Hitler the truth because of how he might react and then convincing themselves that he knows what is going on anyway is horribly funny.
Some of the laughter was unintentional. One of my criticisms is the way that the more sympathetic characters were made to pull faces of astonishment when Hitler or Goebbels said something particularly offensive. I would argue that having worked for them for all this time they would probably have been used to this by now. It reminded me of the Office and the way that all the staff act with total incredulity when David Brent says something offensive. Obviously this is a way to communicate to the audience that we're not meant to think what has just been said is OK, but I just don't think it runs true. If you worked with David Brent (or Hitler) you would know what he was like and you wouldn't look surprised when he acts in character. But thinking of Hitler as being like David Brent or possibly vice-versa isn't as ridiculous a comparison as it might at first appear. I think I am probably the only person who could come out of seeing Downfall and think - that bunker thing might make a good sit-com.
Al knows all about World War II and has actually met the only man from the bunker who is still alive (the communications guy) and he said that the film is impressively historically accurate. It's amazing that this all happened just twenty years before I was born. When we were kids the second world war felt like a thing from the distant past, but now I know that a couple of decades is nothing at all. It's incredible that we've got a point where Europe is as united as it is and where we don't hold any serious grudges against one another.
Definitely go to see this. It's horrific and frightening and makes you question yourself and what you might be capable of. Because it's the people who aren't Hitler who are the really scary ones in this film.
