review of Downfall

Rating: 9/10 (8 May 2007)

With this film I did not know what to expect at first. But after I finished watching it I believe that this could be one of the best and most honest war film I have ever seen. This is a German film about Hitlers last Days in the Berlin bunker. Unlike certain British and especially American films that take a moral high ground, this film is a brutally honest account of what happened without judging the morality of any of the characters, good or bad, it just tells the truth as best it can. The story gripped me from start to finish and at the end there is an important message for all who see it. This film also shows how ignorance can kill but if not stopped can do more damage than you could ever expect, for instance, Madga Gorbells kills her 6 children when she realises that the war is lost because she believes, wrongly, that a life after Nazism is no life to live. After this she and her husband both kill themselves. Also Hitlers secretary shows us that no matter how naive you are that is never an excuse not to find out what evil others are doing, even if done in secret. And this is the lesson that we must all learn. Just because we don't know about things does not give us an excuse to do nothing because we can always find a way to figure it out. And once we do that we can all stop the evil that is around us a little bit at a time.