When Belief Became Madness......

Rating: 10/10 (10 May 2007)

..Nazi Germany was born and when belief became madness, Berlin fell at the hands of the Allies. In the craze of the Fuehrer's final days, "Downfall" lets us see into the souls of men that allowed the madness to rule their compassion, their judgment. As the fate of the German people becomes bleaker and bleaker, as Berlin is invaded by the Russians, the men who cower in their Bunker to lead them into doom refuse to cease the madness of Hitler, instead allowing him to fill the country with false hope while pointing an accusing finger at his Generals and laying the blame of defeat at the German people who so mistakenly followed him into power and mistakenly believed in a cruel false prophet.
A story of the final days of the Reich as lived in The Bunker, "Downfall" is a film of amazing performances, a gripping drama where the end is clear and historically known, yet still draws you in and takes you to a place so dark, so evil; you wish you could find another ending.
Sadly you can't. Innocent children still die at the hands of their mother, Hitler dissolves into a gray, stooped, frenetic, trembling mass of insanity, Eva Braun still dances gaily and smiles through the end of a war that took an awful toll from the heart of humanity.
When watching "Downfall" you quickly forget you are watching a movie, you forget the people on the screen these are simply actors (amazing, gifted actors), who make magic with a compelling script.
If you watch one foreign film this year, make it "Downfall." You will walk away baffled, at the lengths blind loyalty will go; at the immense sacrifice one country made to follow an impossible, imperialistic, hateful, hedonistic dream.
Yet because of a movie like "Downfall" you will learn that not all Germans were Nazi's and some Germans were just people that simply loved their country and the people in it.
The lesson of Downfall is...may we never again see a "Downfall" as wrenching as this one, for in the film lays a vivid warning for the entire world to see, for the price the German people paid in the end of WWII was very, very steep.