Bunker Hell

Rating: 6/10 (6 May 2005)

I put off seeing this film until it was the only game in town and although I've been known to nod off even in 90 minute fare I remained awake for all two and a half hours of this. Its strength is to remain detached from the actual combat it is recording so that we never actually SEE the Allies in action but only the effects of the shelling, bombing, etc. A good ninety per cent of the footage is devoted to the bunker in which Hitler holed up for the last days of the war and whether by design or accident the feeling is of rats scuttling through a maze in search of the cheese that is never going to be there ever again. The acting is of a uniformly high standard virtually all of it in the hands of actors completely unknown outside Germany - or at least in England - and if one must single out Bruno Ganz it is only because he has been saddled with trying to find something in Hitler that would indicate that once he WAS a human being. Although the bunker is well lit and the occupants DO from time to time venture to the surface for a breath of fresh? air the lighting favours darker, solemn, even depressing hues and the symbolism at the end which depicts a day of glorious sunlight could be said to be a tad over the top but otherwise it's a fine film that depicts characters from the full spectrum of our preconceived image of the 'Nazi' from the chilling Magda Goebbles calmly killing her own children in the finest tradition of Greek tragedy to Hitler himself contemptuous of the German civilians who have and must continue to suffer on the altar of his madness to the more rational even verging on the humane of some of his staff. It's difficult to say who is the typical audience for this film but other comments and responses show it is wider than we might imagine.