January 18, 2021

Downfall (2004)

    A disagreeable sensation creeps across the consciousness when watching Downfall: you start to open a small, diseased corner of your heart and mind to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

    This is because those jackals are the protagonists of the film if, indeed, such a film about the final days of World War II from the perspective of German leadership can have protagonists.

    Protagonist has several definitions. The feeling here is that it's normally defined as the hero of the story, or the character the audience can most identify with.

    It can also be defined as simply the leading character in a drama.

    The Nazis cannot be the heroes of any story except their own but, again, we confess our grotesque awareness of watching these horrible figures and wanting something better for them.

    That doesn't make us monsters but maybe just more human. We don't want the Nazis to be Nazis, we don't want Hitler to be Hitler, we don't wish for any of this to have happened.

    And so, as we appreciate the stellar performance of Bruno Ganz as Hitler, we wait for it. We wait for what we know will never come.

    No, we are not spoiling it by telling you what does not happen.

    We watch this film and wait for Hitler to say something. We wait for this wretched, mean, vile, excuse of a human to say he's sorry. To say he's wrong. To say he never meant for things to go this way.

    But he did. All the hate, all the death, all the sorrow, were all part of his plan from the beginning. He was an angel of hell and he scorched the Earth with his weakness, fear, and hate.

    Downfall is a riveting tale of a man who was miserable and awful to the bitter end.

    And his country - and countless lives – forever suffered for it. --TK