Amazing

Rating: 10/10 (23 May 2005)

I really enjoyed this film. The atmosphere in Hitler's bunker as Berlin fell all around it was reconstructed extremely well. The filmmakers did a brilliant job of recreating Berlin in the midst of battle. It actually felt like I was there. When we emerged from the darkened cinema my companions said that they felt as if they had just spent three hours in a bunker. The acting was amazing, particularly Bruno Ganz as an all-too human dictator and Corinna Harfouch with her chillingly calm performance as Magda Goebbels. I could not bring myself to watch as Frau Goebbels killed her children by placing cyanide capsules in their mouths and pushing their jaws together. It is such a shame that these German actors who are at least as talented as their Hollywood counterparts are confined to German language films. Some people have criticised Downfall for humanising Hitler but this was one of the reasons why it is a such a good and important film- we need to be reminded that there were people behind these terrible crimes, not monsters. 'Evil is banal.'