Riveting

Rating: 9/10 (6 July 2007)

Downfall views an extremely convincing, totally intriguing portrayal of Adolph Hitler, whom we know so much about, yet we are intensely engrossed in Bruno Ganz's performance. We have always known what he's done, but it takes an extremely well-directed, very powerful film like Downfall, showcasing Ganz in a lifetime's performance, to realize immediately that he saw so clearly and stubbornly his focal point in life. In scenes where he loses his temper, we see a man who is of course headstrong and violent, but not at all haywire. He had ideas etched in stone and when people did not understand, they suffered his wrath.
Also, rather than a safe, worried little American film that would never show him doing anything but screaming and massacring people, perhaps it takes the perspective of a German film, whose perspective not only counts greatly in a film about the Third Reich, quite obviously, but also, frankly, being a European film, is much more trustworthy in its appearance of honesty. The perspective of the main character, who is not Hitler but one of his naive secretaries, sees an authentically generous individual, who does have a questionable semblance of a heart, even when she sees him cruelly and disgustingly test poison on one of his loyal dogs. From a clever point of view of naivete, we actually see the raw Hitler unbiased, though we're aware of his inordinate viciousness, who is broad and extremely practical in his ways, yet his nature is so dominant that he frequently finds it rather difficult to work his loyal Nazis. As we hear him angrily snarl in his bunker, we hear an exceedingly determined monster who possesses unlimited faith in his own knowledge.