Hitler Made Human

Rating: Null/10 (18 September 2005)

Adolf Hitler is the villain of villains, the embodiment of all that's evil for several generations of Westerners both educated and not. He is a symbol of everything vile, bigoted, insanely murderous - and yet we mustn't forget that he was also a human being. To put it in rather simple-minded terms, even Adolf Hitler was once a baby, was once innocent. And to have once been innocent means he must have had the potential to be something other than evil - if not good than at least innocuous, at least harmless. Unless you're a believer in pre-destiny, you must acknowledge that even Hitler had a chance to be something other than history's most famous genocidal maniac; even Hitler could've grown up to be a normal middle-class man with a wife and family, a law-abiding nobody. And it's precisely this fact that one must keep in mind while watching Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall, a film that seeks to strip away the symbolism, the veneer of myth and get at something of the real Hitler.
There are some who might not want the real Hitler - they might prefer the symbol; it's much easier to hate a symbol than a man - and frankly it's hard to blame them. Who really wants to understand a man so twisted, so driven by insane ideology, by unyielding will? But these are the things that make Hitler interesting, that make Hirschbiegel's take on him compelling. Hirschbiegel gives us a Hitler who is simply unwilling to accept anyone's notion of reality but his own. His advisors tell him the war is going badly but he refuses to believe it; he insists his doomed generals will pull their armies together and push the Russians out of Berlin (the film begins with the city about to fall). When someone tells him news he doesn't like he gets insanely angry, clenching his fists and throwing tantrums like a baby. Does Hirschbiegel mean to suggest that Hitler was some kind of overgrown child, an extreme case of arrested development? He certainly makes a case for Hitler being prone to infantilism; the tantrums reach a level of ferocity that is frightening and absurd, a grown man's version of beating your head against the floor. Some may find this a tad irreverent, portraying Hitler as a childish drama-queen, and yet this is exactly how the character comes across, and on the terms Hirschbiegel sets it is entirely appropriate. This is no in-depth psychoanalysis - Hirschbiegel knows this approach would yield only tedium. Rather than cracking Hitler open, Hirschbiegel seeks to portray as honestly as possible his outward behavior, the signs, if not the causes, of his psychosis.
Hirschbiegel hasn't created a great psychological study or brilliant moral treatise, he has simply taken one of history's most infamous figures and made of him the nucleus of a harrowing drama. And "drama" is entirely the word - Downfall is as rivetingly dramatic as any movie you're going to see; it succeeds both as a historical recreation and a more intimate portrayal of human dynamic. A good, hypey line for Downfall's blurb might be, "It puts you inside Hitler's bunker," but in this case the line would be more than hype. The film has a you-are-there urgency that most historical films don't achieve, and not just because the production is so physically convincing, so thoroughly detailed. It's not enough to construct a bunker that's accurate down to the doorknobs - everything depends on how strong the players are, and Downfall is blessed with a marvelous ensemble. Foremost among the actors is, of course, Bruno Ganz, who plays Hitler with a ferocity, a focus that is truly impressive. Ganz enunciates super-clearly, like man who expects to have his every utterance not only understood but remembered for all times; and when he's throwing one of his tantrums he nails that high, hysterical note we're familiar with from films of Hitler's speeches, while injecting the words with an extra shot of impotent fury. Ganz's Hitler is ashen-faced and stooped, a broken man, and when he loses his temper he seems to shrink even more in on himself, becoming lost in his frustration at the world's unwillingness to conform to his view of it. Yet there are other facets to this performance too - Hitler has moments of lucidity, moments where he seems to come out of his psychosis, and Ganz is not afraid to lend these calmer times a note of tenderness. Hitler's relationships with those around him form the heart of the movie, and they're all complex ones. With Eva Braun he is adoring; Juliane Kohler gives Braun a confused, distantly anxious quality that melts into pure (some would say insane) devotion in Hitler's presence. Devotion and anxiety are the two emotions that most come to the fore when people deal with Hitler - his military advisors live in a constant state of terror (they know the war is lost but can't make Hitler see it), yet continue to perform their duties; and in Joseph and Magda Goebbels (ably essayed by Ulrich Matthes and Corinna Harfouch) we're given a portrayal of maniacal loyalty that takes on a frightening, tragic dimension.
A less insane loyalty is demonstrated by Hitler's young secretary, Traudl (the lovely Alexandra Maria Lara), from whom one senses a sort of maternalistic concern. One could almost imagine Traudl having strange, nurturing feelings for Hitler, a man she perceives as merely troubled (her naiveté), and by showing us Hitler through the eyes of such an eminently rational, radiantly soulful person - a person who is decidedly unevil - Hirschbiegel drags Hitler down from the Pantheon of villains, restoring him at least temporarily to his former status as a mere human being, and allows us, for a moment, to indulge in the potentially-controversial notion that inside the chest of even the most evil of men must beat a human heart.