Wonderful movie, should have been done a long time ago

Rating: 9/10 (4 November 2013)

I avoided watching the film because I knew it was really laden with political and ethical significance. Even as a watcher of a film I shunned the responsibility of having to face it, so how could I possibly accuse the people that took part of all of it?
The movie, a German two hour and a half marathon of humanity "falling down", depicts not only the last delusional day of Herr Hitler, but also that of his closest people, bystanders and young soldiers. It is based on two books, written based on witness accounts of what happened. You need to watch stuff like that in order to understand that even the worse people have been human and had a good side and dreams and connections, but also to understand how the best people get caught in it too, probably because of these same human connections and feelings of loyalty and respect.
What I find disgusting is that movies like these only appear a long time after they can do any good. After half a century of Nazi demonizing, when most of the people involved have died, we muster the courage to admit that Hitler was human, too, and that he and his staff were not a bunch of psychopathic evil monsters; they had ties directly to our very nature. Perhaps in a few decades we will get movies depicting terrorists as human, too, and we will wonder on how delusional they were, but still loved their friends and their spouses and their children. A movie that would probably not help anyone still fighting or trying to come to terms with the consequences of terrible acts, because it would be so much time after the fact.
What jumps in one's face, again and again, from this movie, is how the cocoon around Hitler, just as with so many other maniacal leaders, left him completely disconnected from reality and from the people around him. We get to understand that the same connections that caught so many people in the tide of Nazism also make a monster from the one that chooses or is forced to sever them. Any possible respect for Hitler vanishes immediately when confronted with the image of a crazy old man, ready to let the entire German nation perish, rather than face his own failure.
I would make this film a movie to be watched by children. Not for them to become the subjects of Godwin's law, but to see that human interactions in the inner circle of the Third Reich were no more or less special than the way children relate to each other and their parents. And even if we feel disgust for the people that played strategy games with real people, but were never in the harms way, we have to see those willing to fight for the paternal image of the Fuhrer, the party, God, freedom, or whatever mass delusion they just love to submit to.
This film shows - as so many should have, but chose to parody reality for a quick buck - that "Never again!" doesn't mean not killing people in concentration camps or drawing swastikas, but not falling in these oh so human and easy to miss traps of character. The little things, the ones that should become apparent before they turn into monstrosity.
It also shows how good German actors and cinematography really are. Good job! The only issue I had is with the length of the film. True, it would have been impossible to compress the horror in less time, but some watchers might be ill accustomed to watching something for such a long period of time. Even if you find it difficult, please do try. It is worth it.