Important, Provocative, Should be required for every High School Student

Rating: 8/10 (14 March 2005)

Much will be written about the performances and historians will no doubt quibble about minor details. They have nothing better to do. But you should see this movie. Everyone should see this movie.
The debate over whether or not it paints Adolf Hitler in too human a light is specious. The problem with high ranking members of the Third Reich, Hitler included, is not that they were inhuman. The problem is that they were quite human, and thus they show us what all human beings, ourselves included, are capable of being when devotion to a twisted ideology is carried to the right-wing extremes of fascism. To dismiss these people as easily recognizable monsters is to absolve ourselves from the duty of watching out for them in our midst.
The movie reminds us that Hitler didn't come to power as a result of some coup d'etat, nor did he fall from the sky. His party was elected and legally enacted the laws that led to their rise to power. Little by little the German people sacrificed their freedoms in the name of their "national security" and grandiose visions of their imagined global destiny, until the state had so much power, no one could speak up against it for fear of marginalization, imprisonment and, ultimately death. Do you see where I'm going? And silence in the face of growing horrors during time of war was considered patriotic, - then just as it is now.
Everything about the movie is first rate, the performances and direction are nothing short of stellar, and one can't help but feel better for having seen it. Pay particularly attention to the epilogues, which include a caveat from Traudl Junge herself, taped shortly before her death last decade. She reminds us that our naivete is no excuse.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. See this fine movie and never forget.
8