Effective drama, grave and shocking

Rating: 7/10 (21 March 2005)

Yes, Hitler was an unlikely leader of nations but was not a king nor an emperor but was duly elected into office by a supportive populace. The driving force of his impossible vision was due to two main things not often told or even known....one, his deeply neurotic mother love which gradually transformed itself into his deeply neurotic mother love of his(replacement)mother country and two, the character warping accomplished by this utopian artist's unshakable idealistic vision of the perfect world where all perfect things are forever perfectly in their places, just as in a perfect painting on a canvas created by a "perfect" artist such as he. An impossible combination, but always possible to him.
The mongrelized and thus, to him, imperfect world around him could never be the glorious Aryan world he wanted it to be, but he could not see that truth until the broken end of his fantasy dream, and the film showed well the harrowing result of that break through his collapse into madness and physical debilitation when the real truth of defeat became no longer avoidable.
In the future, all determined Utopia-builders will be forever feared, hated and defeated every time they arise, and this fact is in large part due to Hitler's undeniable but personally unknown contribution to the future of mankind and world history though his defeat. Unfortunately, this very same lesson has been obviously shown to us over and over throughout man's long history, but successive generations from each such event seem to have to relearn, through their own tragic experiences, this cruel lesson, the cost of which is always unspeakable human suffering that could have been essentially avoided if we humans could only better learn this oft-repeated historical lesson. One would think that, for man to endure, this lesson must stick tight to humanity one fine day.
Perhaps this defect indicates in part the real potential of human cloning as a future way to hopefully avoid the gross historical mistakes from which we humans cannot now seem to learn in order to co-exist in peace. Cloning scares me greatly, but we have to be open to its unknown possibilities for improving human beings as a species.
About the film....the main story of the film was the Russian invasion of Berlin, but it was so drawn-out and inconsistent, as they were near the bunker and then not, near again, and then not, and then again, until they finally were there and triumphed. Obviously it was done this way for greater dramatic effect as it made for a more exiting film, but even small changes in well documented war history annoy me when only done for entertainment's sake, thus more profit. True history demands greater honor than that.
Hitler's secretary was an important part of the film and of the true bunker story....but Fraulein Jumps' marriage and name change to Frau Junge was not even mentioned.....a sensitive congrats from Hitler that actually occurred was overlooked in the film, possibly in order to not humanize Hitler too much. In reality, Hitler was very fond of his Bunker "inmates" throughout the siege and thanked them often for their contribution to the cause, which proves that even monstrously sick people such as he can sometimes do nice and very human things on the long and uneven road to infamy.
Overall, the film was very effective in showing the main downside to the personal impact of infamy, that for some of them the only way to escape the terror of inescapable immense public hatred and humiliation resulting from a fall from grace is through the coward's door of suicide, and many criminals along with Hitler have passed through that inglorious door to eternal silence without ever having to face the incredible damage of their actions.