der Untergang - the donwfall of Hitler and his third Reich

Rating: 9/10 (12 October 2006)

If anything was horrifying, it must have been the years in which Hitler reigned over Germany, especially during World War II. Nothing has been more commented on, almost everybody knows what happened during his reign. So when people decided that movies ought to be made to show us the hows, whens and whats, these were made. Unfortunately, Nazi-Germans spoke English, as they were played by Americans and Englishmen. It was very easy to qualify the German people as 'evil'. Now, after 60 years, we see the story from the inside. Little by little we understand that the German people suffered as much as anybody suffered from the terror used by the Nazi-regime. Bruno Ganz may well have played the role of his life, I have never seen an actor playing Hitler so realistically, showing him being normal, frightening, aggressive and mad. This movie, showing the WWII from a non-allied point of view, is a must for all those who easily speak of Germans, when they mean Nazis.