Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (22 March 2006)

This film is the most powerful I have ever seen, a compelling vision of an episode in history that has always fascinated me. Adolf Hitler (supremely realised by Bruno Ganz), the archetype of evil, liberated from stereotype, is made human, sympathetic even. Stripped of his diabolic rhetoric from the podium, he becomes an introspective shadow of his former self, moving from incandescent rage to utter despair, vainly clutching to a delusional hope of final victory. Downfall also has a surrealistic element. Utterly despondent people whose Dream literally crumbles around them are seen partying with the Red Army knocking at the door. Innocent children, oblivious to their bleak future, sweetly serenade their elders in the claustrophobic bunker. For me, this is as close a vision of hell that has ever been committed to film, as Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge says, "It's like a dream but I can't wake up.