Fascinating but Cold German Entry into its own History.

Rating: 8/10 (8 August 2005)

"Downfall" is a fascinating and compelling look at the mindset of the German people at the end of WWII, inspired mostly by the firsthand account of one of Hitler's secretaries who survived the madness that was his bunker in those last days. Here we have an excellent performance from Bruno Ganz as Adolph Hitler, who shows the man's insanity, inhumanity, and his cunning way with people in his intimate circle that allowed him to seduce those around him and the German population at large. Even as everything was falling apart he still had both men and women falling at his knees begging for his next proclamation and willing to follow any order her decreed. In the end, the crushing defeat of his grand ideals, coupled with his irrational hatred for Jewish people that is actually a projection of his own inner hatred for himself and Germany ("The Germans seal their own fate. I have no sympathy for the so-called civilians," he says towards the end of days), lead him into paranoid despair and eventual suicide. Likewise, we get a searing performance from Julian Kohler (a fantastic actress best known for her lead in "Nowhere in Africa") as Eva Braun, representing perfectly the German elite seduced by the promises of a Utopian Third Reich, and who are in utter and complete denial of the horrors around them right up to the last minute as everything they fought for comes spiraling down into their own self-made hell.
One of the few flaws of the film is that it can't decide at times whether to be a straightforward docu-drama (there are often too many of Hitler's inner circle to keep track of) or a soaring WWII epic (there's some compelling subplots revolving around Hitler's youth movement added for dramatic effect). While it may not reach the sublime artistic ideals of "The Pianist" or have the emotional heft of "Schindler's List" or "Saving Private Ryan," "Downfall" deserves a place next to those films for it's unique perspective, for better or worse, on one of the most influential men of the last hundred years and the defining moments of the 20th century.