Downfall Review

Let's face it, any German movie which broaches the issue of Hitler and WW2 is going to attract controversy but this brave and gripping drama from director Oliver Hirschbiegel should stand up to any criticism thanks to its objective take on the subject matter. Told through the eyes of Hitler's loyal secretary Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara), the film recounts the events during the final days of Hitler's (Otto Ganz) life as the Russian army surround and then starts to press into Berlin. As an increasingly delusional and desperate Fuhrer rants against what he sees as the conspiracy against him, his officers and those trapped in his bunker with him face up to their inevitable fates.

Rightly remembered by history as an evil and barbaric man, the main problem Hirschbiegel (and Ganz to some extent) faced when bringing Hitler to the screen was how to portray him? Does he present the man as the devil incarnate or does he try and humanise the defeated and deflated leader? Well the filmmaker tries to find some middle ground, mixing Hitler's personal relationships with those around him with his crazed views on German supremacy, with Ganz in stunning form. One particular chilling scenes sees him thankful that he will be remembered for facing the 'Jewish problem' head on.

And it's not just Hitler who is examined. Hermann Goring, Eva Braun, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbals are all featured to varying degrees but it's Goebbals wife Magda (Corinna Harfouch) who elicits the biggest reaction as she poisons her own little Nazi Von Trapp clan rather than have them grow up in a world without National Socialism.

Downfall isn't a film that will make you sympathise with Hitler and the Third Reich - of course some characters are portrayed more sympathetically than others - instead it offers a view of one old man's fall from grace and allows us to see how the 'real' Hitler may have been.