Best "Final days" movie yet

Rating: 10/10 (1 May 2005)

Recently I am getting more into Adolf Hitler by reading books written by such accomplished authors as the late Sebastian Haffner. I am German spending my first 24 years in Germany and both my parents went through through WWII so I have some idea - and a strong personal interest - of what it was like. "Downfall" (Der Untergang) comes closest to the idea I have not only about the final days in Berlin but of WWII in general. The dialog is straight out of the period with only some minor compromises. German accents were (and still are) so different from each other that they have to be "softened" into "Hochdeutsch" to some extent in order to make everything understandable for audiences. I believe this is the case in any country.
Of course Bruno Ganz delivers the very best Hitler portrait I have ever seen. He just nails the man. There is a human drama within his sick "nature selects the strongest" philosophy which tries to suck you into him. That is the most diabolical part of Hitler the man.
I was totally absorbed by the impeccable photography by Rainer Klausmann which is pin sharp and has the colors exactly look like period color photography with emphasis on cyan (blue green) and yellow. I was surprised to see nothing that looked CGI. The beautiful musical score by Stephan Zacharias, mostly a small string orchestra playing melancholic tunes, suddenly joined by an oboe bringing some "hope" after the capitulation is official, is spot-on.
Overall acting is absolutely impeccable finding the right balance between period feel and some added weight with perhaps only Joseph Goebbels being the weakest portrait - but the man was so unique that I am unable to blame Ulrich Matthes' otherwise impeccable portaial with the accurate slight Cologne area accent.
This movie is very similar in tone to Wolfgang Petersen's "Das Boot" By showing the war as accurate as possible the movie automatically turns into an anti war film. The movie clearly avoids any comment about the war. It just brings you into the heart of Berlin during the last days of WWII.
This movie was long overdue. Sir Alec Guinness' and others tried it earlier but Adolf Hitler cannot be translated into any language. Who better to make a WWII movie viewed from the German side than the Germans? And again: Bruno Ganz' performance is 100% Oscar material - but of course Adolf Hitler is too hot an issue to be considered. Maybe the Academy is right - this madman must never be anything even close to an idol. In any case: this movie is much better than the foreign film Oscar winner "The Sea Inside".
Der Untergang, The Downfall: Highest rating!