Should be called DAS BUNKER

Rating: 9/10 (8 December 2005)

This film should be called DAS BUNKER. A film both physically and metaphorically claustrophobic. Like DAS BOOT, one also gets glimpses of the outside world and the possibilities that could occur, but won't. It chronicles the last days of Hitler and selected cronies as they watch the world they created vanish around them.
Hitler is extraordinarily played by the actor Bruno Ganz, most famously seen in an antonym of this role as an angel in WINGS OF DESIRE. In the same way that Germany needed an outsider to motivate their militarism and eventual destruction, so has Oliver Hirschbiegel employed a foreigner(Ganz is Swiss) to depict this most deplored of dictators. He is humanised here- no Bokassesque cannibalism here. There were times he could be kind and, horror of horrors, even loved his dog! And not even in the biblical sense. But evil has always had a deceptive face and the depiction of the orderly, ordinary world is chilling in view of all that we know.
The film is taken from the diaries and observations of, amongst others, Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge here ably played by Alexandra Maria Lara- an innocent? amongst wolves. At times there is almost a fly on the wall feel to the film. At two and a half hours it's no slouch but I didn't feel it. Take a big pack of popcorn a strong bladder and prepare for one of the finest films of the year.