The best German WW II movie ever....

Rating: 10/10 (18 February 2006)

For the past 15 years it has been, the news from Germany has been, worrisome to say the least: religious intolerance and oppression, neo-Nazis, racism, xenophobia, especially the constant German comments like "it was the War, it was a long time ago, its over just leave it alone," one begins to wonder if in fact the German people ever really understood the magnitude of the crimes they actually committed against Humanity. Then this movie came out. It is without a doubt the finest German movie about the war ever made. In fact it ranks right alongside with the fantastic Jewish film "Shindler's List" as one of the truly definitive "Nazi-movies" of all time.
Normally I am so lazy, I just hate watching foreign language films. Even though I am fluently bilingual I have to put the English sub-titles on Spanish movies so I don't have to think too much. Hell, I'm so lazy and DVD-spoiled that I even put the English sub-titles on English movies! When we started the DVD, I was really annoyed. "German" its all in "German!" What a rip off! Well I have to admit that after watching the whole movie, I wouldn't have wanted to watch it in English after all. Hitler was German, the Germans speak German. Having seen so many movies with terrible doubling here in Mexico and just how much it can cost a movie's authenticity, I think this was a brilliant decision to put it out in German.
Bruno Ganz is simply spell-binding as Hitler. He makes every single earlier rendition of the man pale in comparison. While he can't quite get the mesmerizing, insane charisma just right, (and no-one ever will,) he hits everything else about the character dead center. This is as Oscar-worthy a performance as Kingley (Gandhi), Brando (Godfather), or Scott (Patton). He makes Adolph Hitler live on the screen for those 2 hours plus, like no other actor ever has before.
Corinna Harfouch as Magda Goebbels is truly compelling as well as really spooky. The personality, the fanaticism, the madness necessary to slaughter your own children rather than allow them to grow up outside of your own self centered, perverse reality is something no true loving parent could comprehend ever, and that is so well captured in the movie. Unlike most American flicks where we would have been subjected to endless drivel and senseless "psycho-babblings" to understand the "mind" of Magda, this film spares us that and simply shows what she does, its powerful and riveting.
Michael Mendl is also superb in his role of Wehrmacht General Helmuth Weidling. If you want to know how it was that the German military even came close to winning a war in which they were alway seriously outnumbered since the beginning in men, tanks and aircraft, study closely the character of Weidling as portrayed by Mendl, amidst all the whining toadies, hysterical cowards and drunken fools, he storms into Hitler's bunker and announces loudly, "appearantly I'm to be shot!" For better of worse, doing his duty to the bitter end, he was the exact type of German officer who made the Wehrmacht the most feared army on the face of the Earth. Great performance.
There are so many others who give great performances as well, its a shame that in English language films we won't get to see many of these superb German actors much in the future. With only a couple of exceptions the casting, scripting and acting was brilliant and really re-created the "last days." To some critics who complained about the historical accuracy, as a historian and writer, I have no idea what you are talking about. Compared to the absolute falsity and stupid unnecessary "glitter" of the majority American war movies, this was extremely accurate and mostly based on eye-witness accounts.
To the German people: a simply excellent effort and a brilliant look into a dark corner of a terrible past, as a nation, you should be proud of this movie, the best German WW II movie ever...