Brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (8 April 2005)

Downfall is truly an excellent film. One of those rare pictures where you can forget you are watching actors and actually believe in them as the real people they are playing. Bruno Ganz is uncanny as Hitler, and the supporting cast is uniformly fine. There is no music, just the dull thud of the Russian shells in the background. Although there have been many war films, the fall of Berlin, one of the most dramatic events of the 20th Century, has been neglected by filmmakers. It's good that it is a German film that has brought this period to the forefront again. I think every secondary school pupil should have to see this film, it is a piece of moving history as well as a gripping piece of cinema.