Downfall

[annwfyn]

http://www.downfallthefilm.com/

This film is on Netflix. It's an amazing German language film about the last ten days of Hitler's life, and the fall of the Third Reich. I was kind of unsure about it originally - I feared it would be Nazi porn, which I dislike intently. I also wasn't sure I could cope with two hours in German. But I was wrong.

I won't say I enjoyed it exactly. It wasn't a fun film, it was dark and heavy going and very harrowing in places, but it was absolutely fascinating. It captured a place and a group of people who I have always found almost incomprehensible and made them real and human.

Yet I didn't think it made Hitler any less evil for showing him as human. If anything it made him a more chilling figure, sliding from grandfatherly kindness to horrific declarations. About the only issue I really had with it is that you needed a fairly decent amount of 1940s history, or Wikipedia, just to be able to put it all in context.

I finished watching it yesterday around 9pm unsure if it felt like more or less than two hours. It felt like a big two hours, but it never dragged or got dull. In a weird way, I'm also glad I'd just finished watching Band of Brothers again, for more dramatic context. I also need to find out more about the Eastern Front now as that feels like a very big hole in my WW2 knowledge. Decent books, TV shows or film recommendations are gratefully accepted.

Comments

[andrewducker]

I saw it at the cinema, and was incredibly impressed.

I've never quite been able to bring myself to watch it again though.

Have you seen the various versions of the meme that makes use of Hitler's rant?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think I saw the meme before the movie, which made that bit a little surreal to watch!

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

If the Eastern Front's what I think it is (I'm not very keen on WWII stuff), then Enemy At The Gates is an excellent film set in the Battle of Stalingrad.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

I see Enemy at the Gates has been recommended, which is a good call, but from the German point of view Stalingrad rocks in a Das Boot kind of way. I've got the DVD if you want to borrow it.