Excellent film

Rating: 8/10 (19 April 2015)

A very well made film that dares to present Hitler and those close to him in the dying days of the Third Reich as human. But it must be said, it's quite chilling to watch him dressing down his generals whose men are dying for Germany in the thousands, and criticising failed military moves of his own making, as his world literally falls down around him in the Berlin bunker. Also, when he's told that civilians including children are dying because he won't surrender or negotiate with the Allies, he doesn't care. The film effectively portrays the banality of evil, as Hitler lovingly strokes his dog, and as his girlfriend Eva Braun rather manically smiles her way through the crisis. It's strange to watch an impeccably groomed Magda Goebbels calmly poisoning her six sleeping children to death because she doesn't want them to live in a world without National Socialism. It's so surreal it's hard to believe it actually did happen in real life. The film also dares to present some of the generals, secretaries and senior Nazis as having compassion and emotions. I found that quite confronting. Special mention here to the searing intelligence and courage portrayed by Christian Berkel as the apparently good-hearted Professor Schenck who finds himself confronting rogue death squads and amputating limbs on the frontline in the dying hours. The film doesn't shirk from the utter bloodiness of the destruction of Berlin that Hitler is bringing down upon himself. The film is wrongly promoted as narrated by Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, although it is based on her riveting book describing her time working for Hitler. In the film, Junge is very much a side character, and doesn't seem to do much, other than react with horror to what's going on. I guess the film's subject matter overwhelmed that angle.