Having just seen 'Downfall' - the film of the last days of Hitler, for the second time, I must admit to understanding the film a little better....

This time, I saw it in its original version with subtitles, the first time it was dubbed into Spanish.

It's a very interesting film although there are aspects which tend to make me raise the eyebrows several degrees. The recurring problems are the original sources for the film. Unlike other 'Last Days In The Bunker' movies, the more academic sources are hardly touched on, instead, the book is an amalgam of the memoirs of one of Hitler's personal secretaries and his SS Adjutant. The end result, in my opinion, is a kind of if not apology, then at least a watering down of what has been coined as the 'Banality of evil'...

Now this normally wouldn't matter, if we could rely on the viewers of this film to read a series of different sources (William L. Shirer, Bullock or Beevor) to name but three, but I tend to feel that the film somehow expunges any collective responsibility of the German people for the atrocities which were committed in their name along with the widespead knowledge which existed of the final solution..

What the film does (admirably) is to show some of the atrocities committed in the final days (the infamous 'flying tribunals' are portrayed in a chilling manner).

Now i'm sure that this isn't a revisionist view of history at all, but in such an important area, it does, IMHO, somewhat make the obscenity which was the Third Reich into a lesser malovelent thing...

Worth seeing but with an 'Academic Advisory' ....Jim

p.s.the 'Tiger' portrayed in the movie is REALLY nasty....

I have seen the movie a couple of times, and i find it more "observing" than "judging".

If the intent was to show what happend without comment, then i think the movie is a succes, but like Jim I would suggest to get other sources in use, and not only rely on this movie.

Btw. the actor protraying Hitler does a splendid job in my opinion.

All in all, a film worth seeing, but it can´t stand alone.

100% concur - truly extraordinary. However, it would be unfair not to give an equally large plaudit to the actor who portrayed Goebbels. Now that was really creepy. Forget Hannibal Lector, this guy was truly frightening...Jim

I have not seen the film (yet), unfortunately.

If I understood correctly the intention of this film was the show the last days of Hitler and place them in a human context. And try to imprint the fact that Hitler, for all his evil, was a human being.

The problem with many of the academic works is that figures like Hitler (but also say Stalin, Mao etc) were/are almost placed outside humanity. They represent to many such an evil that they are being demonized, and hence placed outside humanity (as if they were aliens instead of humans).

A similar thing has come forward in a study at my university concerning the perception of Stalin by Russians/Soviets (Ukr. farmers, peasants, soldiers, factory workers etc.) at that time through diaries and the like. And basically the results were almost the opposite of what you would have guess when reading the academic literature about the period and Stalin in particular.

The demonization of Stalin, Hitler and other similar people is actually a natural defensive psychological mechanism (you can see it at all levels).

In fact, on of the critiques by some Jewish groups was that Hitler was actually portrayed as a human being (and they even wanted the film banned because of it).

i have yet to see it as it was only given a limited cinema release here.

my girlfriend has seen it, not being as much of a history buff her main impression of the film was how chilling the last days were portrayed in the film.

anyone know the UK dvd release date?

regards

Joe

It's released on the 19th September Joe. Borders can pre-order, as I can imagine most other booksellers. £19.99.

Vinnie