A Limp Heil

Rating: 3/10 (12 November 2005)

Last year's "Hitler's Secretary" documented the life of Traudl Junge, the last woman to transcribe the virulent dictator's dictation. Did anyone out there order a straightforward narrative account of Hitler's final days in the bunker? Following in the goosesteps of Richard Baseheart, Alec Guinness, Sidney Miller and countless others is Bruno Ganz, Wim Wenders' fallen angel, trying hard to add a little extra sieg to the heil, stretch to the salute and spittle to the tirades. Ganz makes a great Fuhrer. The obligatory tousling that falling lock of famous hair and siphon-bursts of anger are brilliantly mimicked. He even adds a new mannerism to the character - the left hand behind the back spastically squeezing an imaginary ball.
In an attempt to add a touch of documentary realism, the first voice we hear belongs to the real Ms. Junge, Hitler's farewell stenographer. Apprehension set in early on during Traudl's (Alexandra Maria Lara) interview. Hitler confides, "I make so many mistakes when I dictate." Not that I was expecting a Mel Brooks musical number, but some type of subtle suggestion that the authors understood the irony in the dialog would have added a tinge of personality to this otherwise conventional directorial debut.
Much has been said of the movie's alleged attempts to humanize Hitler. He's nice to his dog and Traudl. He was good enough to marry Eva Braun just prior to their mutual suicides. Still, that doesn't make him sympathetic or any less capable of committing atrocities. More like a lame attempt by a publicist to frantically stir up word of mouth over a film that asks viewers to spend the better part of their day in a bunker with the Maharishi of mass murder, his architects of doom and their families.
Even though the film is limited to only one screaming mother, it still can't help but plead guilty to stirring up the kind of messy sentiment too often associated with the genre. When all else fails, toss in a child and feebly juxtapose their clean slates with the Nazi atrocities. In this case there are kids both in and out of the bunker. An eight-year-old "civilian" who takes down two tanks before receiving a personal commendation from Shickelgruber must eventually learn the errors of his ways. Next to a bucket of amputated body parts in the O.R., the most difficult scene to watch has Mother Goebbles feeding cyanide to her sleeping offspring. The former is off-putting due to its sudden, graphic appearance. The latter is even more repulsive due to its meticulous, downright loving (in the sense that the filmmakers knew the power of the scene and milked it for all the schmaltz its worth) pictorialization. Is this one of the humanizing elements people are bent out of shape over? It isn't long before death can't be mentioned without being butted against a scene featuring children. The Goebble's Family Singers perform a song for Aunt Eva and Uncle Hitler just prior to an in-depth discussion of various forms of death. A suicide is dutifully followed up with a symbolic baby's doll flying out a window.
The vast majority of the running time plays out in the bunker and once we lose Der Fuhrer it all becomes tiresome. The loose ends come together and once again, Ms. Traudl (this time with an image to accompany the voice) is brought into play, Obviously tacked on to add a bookend (and documentary credence) it cannot help but evoke unwelcome memories of "Schindler's List," the film spawned it.