The fall of evil ... to put the reasons of its rise into historical perspective ...

Rating: 10/10 (15 May 2011)

She gives her children sleeping syrup then she puts cyanide pills in their mouths before closing them, one by one, causing an immediate death. One of the most sickening deaths my eyes ever witnessed, and the woman who commits this cold-blooded murder is Magda Goebells, the wife of Adolf Hitler's infamous Propaganda Minister. When Hitler, Nazism, the Third Reich, the dream of Germania were over and the Russians coming, not only she refused to be part of this new "Nazi-less" order (she and her husband would kill themselves right after) but she decided to prevent her own children from living this reality.
This only scene sums up the cruelty and degree of evil alienation Nazism exercised on civilized minds, it's like the rise and fall of evil, seen in microcosm.
"The Downfall" deals with the last days of Nazism trapped in a devastated Berlin, incarnating a Germany ripped in its flesh. The setting is Hitler's bunker, whose claustrophobic feeling gets more perceptible as the end is approaching. In the case of Hitler, so alienated by his own fanaticism, his contempt for weakness caused him to suicide, after having 'suicided' his own people. I think the parallel with the Magda Goebells' scene is quite obvious. Hitler literally put Nazism in the mind of his people before condemning them to a certain death. Therefore, I can't see how this movie could be blamed for sympathy towards Nazis.
What were people expecting? This is a historical movie, with the same coldness and detachment the course of events expresses towards our human judgment. The movie is about what happened, had it inserted any ounce of our post-war judgment; this would have been an epic, anything, but not this masterpiece of German realism in the same vein than the great "Das Boot".
Now, let's get this straight. Is the movie guilty of portraying Hitler in a sympathetic way? The answer is yes, and no. Yes, the movie did portray the "Most Hated Man of Modern History" in a sympathetic way, and no, the movie is not guilty of that. On the contrary, it's its greatest achievement, and success in the field of cinematic intelligence. Had it tried to portray the monster in a monstrous way, this would have been falling into the kind of traps that makes consensus almost synonym of dishonesty. "Downfall" reached the same level of intelligence as "Das Boot", while providing the same thrills through the claustrophobic feeling, and inviting us to question our personal approach to the notion of evil.
Bruno Ganz delivers one of the most powerfully intense performances I've ever seen, inspiring both hatred and pity, as Adolf Hitler. It's the kind of performance that should have earned him every cinematic Award nomination but of course, considering the character, this would have been quite difficult. Another proof of the subjects's uneasiness, as if it was more convenient to portray the evil with one-dimensional levels of cruelty or simply to ridicule him, garnering pitiful laughs, in other words, better to please a fallacious consensus than to respect the audience's intelligence. That's why "Inglourious Basterds" is more popular than "Downfall", I guess people are more comfortable with that.
And if you think about it, the same reasoning that created the controversy carries something of the same visions that can lead to fanaticism. Fanaticism starts with general consensus, right or wrong, and this consensus is built on the automatic condemnation of the 'no'. Said differently, extreme positions lead to extreme situations, and the film finally broke the last taboo, in a cathartic way that transcended the big screen.
To understand is to analyze with objectivity. And objectivity, self-criticism, allow to avoid the same mistakes. Have we learned lessons from history, has WWII 'vaccinated' us against fanaticism, as destructive, if not more? No. Because people still read history from a "winner vs. loser" point of view. And this ridiculous categorization lead to perceive what was only military duty with the glasses of heroism or evil. That's why movies like "Downfall" are necessary. It depicted Nazis in a sympathetic way, but not Nazism, which is the main point. Nazism was totally embodied by fanatics, on the top of them, Hitler, and the main officers, but the rest were soldiers, fighting for beliefs they were brainwashed in, for years and years, without any opposition.
The movie redeems a whole misconception that have proved to do more bad than good, because of comforting the idea that evil is like a kind of virus that can be fought only by eradication. Nazism was the embodiment of an evil fanaticism, but to get rid of it is to kill it from the roots, the same roots that made Nazis point out the Jews as responsible of Germany's defeat, and we all know, how it ended up. The film tactfully evokes the Concentration camps at two moments, specifically one crucial scene where Hitler's evilness is more explicit. Similar moments occur where he spits on his own people considering they deserve to die in defeat, moved by his eternal contempt of weakness, inspired by the same rules that govern animals' lives. If one perceives this portrayal as sympathetic, well, it's hopeless.
Yes, in other scenes, he's shown as a delicate, charming, sober human being, but well, I guess one must be quite 'charming' if he managed to lead one of the most civilized people to the hell of barbarity. Besides, let's not forget this is a movie told from the point of view of his secretary, a young idealistic woman who saw Hitler as many German people did.
But the movie doesn't show Hitler this way to plead in favor of the population. As said Traudl Hunge, youth wasn't an excuse. And despite all the efforts, it seems like the guilt carried by German people is not over yet