Hitler's last days

Rating: 10/10 (26 October 2016)

Downfall is an enthralling film that examine the final days of the Nazi hierarchy ensconced in their bunker. It is a war story I have never encountered before, the German view of the last days in 1945. As the war is lost we see the Nazis throwing their own citizens in peril as the red army takes control of Berlin.
As Goebbels remarks, he has no sympathy for the German citizens, they made their choice, gave the Nazis the mandate now they will face the consequences.
Downfall is told from the view of Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara) a young woman from Munich taken on by Hitler as a secretary in 1942. Her memoir is one of the sources of the movie's narrative.
Hitler (Bruno Ganz) is increasingly unhinged at times shouts like a rabid dog of comrades, generals that have betrayed him. His acolytes in the bunker, some remain loyal, some look to get out, some look for a glorious death, others just to survive. As the city is near to falling, you see a few of the officers getting increasingly drunk, (Eva Braun lives a decadent life even as the city is being pounded) others make way in to the bunker and hear Hitler speak of some miraculous, imaginary strategy that an army division will come to the rescue. In the meantime he is making plans for his own and Eva's death and destruction of their bodies.
As Berlin is destroyed, its citizens turn on in each other, people get hung as Russian collaborators. A young boy is part of a makeshift resistance to repel the Russians and then just tries to make his way home.
At the end you see the Goebbels who decide it is National Socialism or nothing and Mrs Goebbels calmly kills her own children before they take their own lives.
The film finishes as we see documentary footage of Junge who confesses she did not know what was happening under the Nazis but she should had looked harder, after all Sophie Scholl who was also from Munich knew what was happening.
Downfall is apparently faithful to the facts. It is not just a film that is set in the bunker, you see the fighting in the city, the German soldiers trying to resist, getting conflicting orders at times impossible orders. One General is ordered to be shot for leaving his lines, he has not and goes to see Hitler to complain.
Director Oliver Hirschbiegel has made a commanding film that holds your attention and a blazing performance by Ganz. His Hitler is ill and mad, knowing his dream of the third Reich is in ruins and flip flopping between reality and fantasy surrounded by sycophants who want him to leave Berlin and suspicious military leaders, who feel betrayed by his overconfidence and ineptitude who wish to pursue peace at this late stage.