A modern masterpiece, which brings to dramatic life the truism that the best movies made in the world are often outside Hollywood

Rating: 10/10 (1 October 2005)

Just finished watching this modern masterpiece, which brings to dramatic life the truism that the best movies made in the world are often outside Hollywood. Germany is not generally known for very good movies, notwithstanding classics such as Run Lola Run and Das Boot, but Der Untergang is among the very best movies ever made.
The film, which literally means The Downfall, charts the final days before the unconditional surrender by Germany after the final siege of Berlin. Exquisitely subtle, (there are only about a half dozen explosions in the entire film, each one literally earth-shaking and so well positioned structurally in the film, we remember this is basically a war movie of a kind. It is much more of a drama though, as it charts the emotions of those involved in the final days, in Hitler's inner circle. Told primarily from the perspective of a very young secretary of Hitler's whose then unquestioned allegiance to him and eventual (after half a century, that is) double take on her naivety provide a metaphor for Germany's own relationship to humanity's greatest shame, the film succeeds remarkably in going where no-one could, before.
In taking this perspective, the film broke a half-century old taboo, going where it wasn't possible to before a new millennium brought a new freedom. Even then the film kicked off major protests across Germany and elsewhere in the world (mostly Europe) for allegedly 'humanizing' Hitler. That it does, definitely, more or less the way Satya humanizes the participants of the Mumbai underworld. Whether film has the right to allow reprehensible individuals and groups a say through an essaying of their first person perspectives is a moot and morally complex point and this is not the place for such a discussion. Der Untergang at no point glorifies the Nazis, but it does sympathize with their condition when all was lost, as any human being or group deserves sympathy, even those responsible for the worst of the worst crimes.
What is utterly remarkable about this film is its exercise of storytelling and film-making technique. Outstanding in all departments, and blended into a gestalt so perfect that no element can be singled out as superior to the rest, it is an experience to cherish  a perfect film. Film at its best takes us into a space and time radically removed from our own, yet so real a reality that we are completely immersed vicariously in it  and Der Untergang fits this to a T. Yet it is necessary to make note of one aesthetic stroke  the movie's take on Hitler as a manic depressive bipolar swinging between absurd visions and profound melancholies that often descended into rants and rages and Bruno Ganz's portrayal of this complex role. Never for a moment did I doubt Bruno Ganz was Hitler, the channeling is of the order of Jamie Foxx's essaying of Ray  simply perfect.
All in all  this film is the reason we watch films compulsively, so that among the dozens we experience, one may rise up to the true potential of cinema.