The madness, the propaganda, the glamour

Rating: 10/10 (3 June 2005)

I just saw this film yesterday, after listening to violent reactions on the radio. Here in Argentina there's a big Jewish community and it had a big impact. One of the presenters of a radio program was very offended by the fact that there were a lot of deaths depicted in the film but the actual moment when Hitler shoots himself wasn't. The man wanted to see it, needed it for his own satisfaction! That's disturbing, knowing there's so much hate going around, and in persons too young to ever have had direct contact with the facts in question. That implies that someone older took a lot of work in implanting that hate. That's frightening. On the film, I think the great thing about this film is you can see a person or persons who have undergone a process of dehumanization and indoctrination that at the time point of the movie is completely irreversible, and they acknowledge they have no future in a project different than theirs. Hitler makes clear at several points that he chose to construct himself as such a person, and in the end he is nearly delusional, unable to separate the fatherland from his own personna, but remaining a human being when he's not concerned with matters of state. That makes his craziness much more believable, almost schizophrenic. On the whole, you see masses brainwashed by propaganda, some of them wanting blindly to be brainwashed, some accepting it warmly because of a sense of security. That is the story of Junge, as most of the others. I think that's the fatherland concept, you know you can relax and enjoy your country because there's a hard guy in the government that cares for you, and if you support him without asking too much, things will be great for you and the likes of you. I think it's good to see that in a global context. The moral for me is that when in a tragic national situation people look for comfort, they'd rather accept propaganda that makes them feel secure and positive rather than question from their own points of view. So blocks of power are formed on stereotypes and propaganda, and measures taken in the end that no ordinary person would avail in a day to day basis, but the death of individual unbiased thinking ends up like that.