Every now and then, Germany gets out a movie that stands out

Rating: 9/10 (3 September 2005)

Films about Hitler are always in the dilemma of how to show this inconceivable character, as a crazy maniac, a hatred low level or what ever, risking to make him look human or to blow the chance of showing him as he possibly was. The film sticks reasonably with the credentials given by Traudl Junge, Hitlers private secretary and other eye witnesses of the final days of Hitler. There are two levels of story telling here, on the one side the strange, unreal isolated world of the "Bunker" into which Hitler retreats when the Russians are taking Berlin, and, on the other hand, the real life, well depicted in gripping battle scenes, army hospitals and interwoven to a no longer "civil" life of people being forced to arms or being hanged or becoming "collateral damage" in the fight. Confronted are the end time mood dominating Hitlers bandwagon of Generals, Party Leaders and other strange fellows surrounding him against the useless death of regular soldiers, Volkssturm people and Hitler Youth, with their fanatical will to turn the tide that finally rolls over them. Bruno Ganz, naturally, has the "best" role here, showing Hitler in a variety, from going berserk on bad news to being almost private as well as tangling himself and his entourage into phantasm of Army groups to relieve him, which have long ceased to exist as fighting units. Also impressive a long cast of German character actors, Corinna Harfouch as the mother taking the live of their 5 children, which shall not face a time without Hitler and National Socialism certainly standing out. Highly impressive, very well done to the small details, this movie can well hold up against any American Movie of the same budget both in quality as well as box office value. Once more a film, that made me happy to have been saved from the terrors of the world wars by the mercy of late birth. 9/10.