Possibly the most important film of the year...

Rating: 9/10 (28 March 2005)

Hirschbiegel wanted to make sure that this film was directed by a German, and done right, so that the story was put forth cautiously and in the proper hands. It was heavily researched, and is based primarily on interviews with the sort of 'narration' character, a secretary to Hitler named Traudl Junge, who was 22 at the time, and was excused after the war, considered one of the 'young and innocent' - the youth who were caught up in the Nazi Machine without being considered 'at fault'. Excerpts of her interview make the perfect bookend to this film, as we enter and exit from the story with some powerful thoughts to process. It's also based somewhat on interviews with Albert Speer at Spandau, and shortly after he was released, and on a book by one of the world's foremost historians/researchers on the subject. It's aura is exhaustingly real, unbelievably intense. Even now, three days later, I'm still somewhat numb. This is definitely not Hollywood melodrama...
This film is extremely important, because it forces us to realize that Hitler - along with everyone else surrounding him - was one of our species. It does not pull punches, and certainly doesn't make him sympathetic, doesn't 'humanize' him, and highlights his delusions to make sure there's no mistake about his mindset. But it's a film that forces us to realize that it was a human being who did this - who committed some of the worst crimes humanity has ever witnessed, and that is an eye-opener that some people, I think, need to have. Because if we simply dismiss Hitler as an inhuman monster rather and a human one, then we are trivializing the deaths of tens of millions of people, each of whom died in order for us to learn what human beings are truly capable of. 9/10.