The end of a human monster

Rating: 9/10 (14 November 2007)

This is undoubtedly one of the best movies I've ever seen. Its direction is almost perfect in all its aspects: sceneries, camera movements, screen-play, acting, technical features, etc.. The character of Hitler is so well performed by Bruno Ganz that we forget that we are before an actor and come to think we are before Hitler himself. The movie shows with striking realism all the contrast between the almost normal and quiet bunker scenes and the awful war ones taking place outside with all their fights and the drama lived by the civil population. Inside the bunker we watch the progressive psychological and physical decay of the dictator still surrounded for his few fanatic supporters still ready to die for him and his ideology when outside in the city all crumbles under Soviet fire. The mad man still believes the war can be won and in the map he moves military units and divisions that don't exist anymore. Since monsters can sometimes also be human beings we can watch sometimes a few human and even generous attitudes of Hitler and his followers. Some people have criticized this as attempts to show Hitler and the Nazis under a more favourable light. I don't agree with this. Realism is realism and must not be Manichean. If we want to know a human being (though a monster) in all his entirety we must know all of his or her features. The movie is realistic in all its aspects and with extreme rigour. All the characters act just like we expect them to do and incarnate extremely well the real people they are supposed to do. Particularly moving are the scenes where Frau Goebbels proceeds to poison their children before committing suicide with her husband, acting simultaneously like a tender and nice mother and an horrible monster. This movie is a real landmark in the history of cinema.