Well, get to it in theatres, I am sure it's showing in Toronto! :razz:

Here's my review for newspaper. It's not the final...I'm enlarging the headline just for you, Lecter.

'Downfall' - A Downer

Filmmakers have never forgotten World War II. It seems that, with each mention of the Oscars, a World War II film is in the running for a gold trophy. Who can forget the powerful Schindler’s List, the touching Life is Beautiful, or the emotional The Pianist? The latest film covering World War II, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall, is different from the aforementioned. Nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2004, Downfall depicts Adolph Hitler, the dictator responsible for the rise of the Nazi party, as a human being. While it is strange to see Hitler kiss his secretaries, shake his young followers’ hands, and play with his dog, Downfall is one of the only films to give the menace a face.

Flashback to April 1945. Germany, after conquering almost all of Europe, is at the verge of losing all that it has gained. The Russians have entered Berlin and seized control of the city. The German army is lost and dispersed about the country, making any last attempts to force the Russians out of Berlin impossible. Hitler (played by Bruno Ganz) and his colleagues have little hope for escape. With the civilians panicking and the government pondering, Berlin is a mess.

The film’s strength lies in its performances. Bruno Ganz portrays Hitler at his most natural. While it is hard to sympathize with Ganz’s Hitler, Ganz does a phenomenal job illustrating the grief and anxiety Hitler goes through in his final 12 days. Alexandria Maria Lara, playing Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge, is also effective. Through Lara’s wide range of facial expressions and her ability to convey emotion, the audience can recognize how chaotic the final days were for everyone involved – not only the government officials.

The film itself is realistically shot. Berlin looks as dark and depressing as it must have been imagined. The artistic direction and special effects also add to the technically impressive film.

The film’s main flaw, though, is pacing. While Downfall is a piece of history, little in the film changes. The first half is comprised of battle sequences, and, the second half is comprised of people brutally killing themselves. Everything is so relentless and repetitive that it becomes hard to maintain interest. Just when the audience has seen enough of the suicides, a man sticks a gun in his throat and pulls back the trigger. Five minutes later, two more men shoot themselves. The approach, while possibly realistic, is tiresome.

Although it is worthy of acclaims for its style, acting, and approach to Hitler’s supposed “humanity,” Downfall is too detailed and disturbing to interest the average teenager.

I wonder what made you post a better review of the movie in a newspaper than what you've been telling us here all along :razz:

The movie's not really for teenagers anyway.

1500 Berlin Jews escaped deportation...

And they all stayed in Berlin throughout the entire war...right...

yes. At the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship there were 120000 jews in Berlin. When the war ended 1500 managed to hide away from deportation. It's not a big number compared from where they started, but not too small to justify being ignored in the movie

I have hard time to believe that they, indeed, stayed in Berlin, though and did not flee anywhere, ya know.

Assuming you are right, though, how exactly would you have incorporated them into the movie and what purpose would it serve other than making it seem that the filmmakers were forced to add something about the Jews and the Holocaust into the movie, hm?

I think I am right, you can research it.
As I said, they could have done it as a sidestory. What purpose did the episode with the Hitlerjunge have other than making it seem that they wanted to portray the common german as victim of the Regime? I think if they had switched that they could have make a movie that was better balanced...

I will research.

But tell me how exactly that would have fit? The struggling of the Jews within the Third Reich was always the same and in the last 12 days of it, nothing have changed. What purpose would it have served? To showcase once again how they suffered? I think we know it by now through other movies that specifically dealt with this topic.

The purpose? Commensurability. Not only germans died in the War...

Ok I finally saw Der Untergang this evening. Let me start by saying I by no means know a lot about German political history, or the second world war. It was covered in my schooling but that was some time ago now! So I may well be missing obvious points, I only remember the basics so please forgive me.

It is difficult to separate a film like this, to view it simply as a film and ignore the historical/factual side isn’t easy, which makes giving it a grade very difficult. Looking at it purely as a piece of cinema I thought it was very well acted, the portrayal of Hitler was better than I had expected as the opening scenes were worryingly ‘awkward’ not quite overacted, but at times it came close. Thankfully it didn’t continue past the opening scenes. Some of the imagery at the beginning was very good, stylised. Something which I think it lost towards the end of the film, although that may have been the point, that everything was in ‘downfall’ and there was no order. I do think the film stalled at Hitlers death (which I’ll come to soon), it lost its flow a little and seemed for the first time to drag slightly. I felt like the film didn’t quite know where it wanted to go or what it wanted to be after that point. Purely as a film I ‘enjoyed’ it, if you can use that word to describe such a film.

However, there were a couple of things that really made me quite angry. I wish the filmmakers had had the courage to show Hitlers’ death. I can understand why they didn’t as his death wasn’t actually witnessed (as far as I am aware), but I felt somehow let down by it being ‘covered up’ slightly. The scene with Goebbels killing the children in their sleep didn’t sit quite right either, neither did their suicides. Once again, having seen many other suicides we were treated with kid gloves to the pan away and BANG system. I wanted to see the result of where there actions had taken them to, I wanted closure on that part of the story and felt let down again by a lack of courage to show it.

That said the story was powerful, and the large budget evident. I can’t really comment on any historical inaccuracies as these would have just gone over my head. Overall I think it verged on being a very good film, but floundered towards the end and missed the mark. I gave it a B- but that is subject to change when I’ve thought about it some more.

It's not like the movie depicts the "evil Soviets" killing the innocent Germans, but much rather Germans killing their own people. As far as the Holocaust goes, it has been depicted in other movies that were made to deal with this subject. Downfall is not one of this movies. Do you think that every single WW II movie has to deal with it?

Maybe someone else has seen it in the meantime....?

*bump*

Rented it tonight.

'Twas good.

I pretty much felt the way torrino did about the film, though a little nicer with the grading because, frankly, I just love movies about WWII, Hitler, and the Holocaust (though I still have to see The Pianist - will do when I get Netflix again this week...).

The performances were pretty great. I was incredibly impressed with the performance by Bruno Ganz. It was just so...so perfect. The secretary, Alexandra Maria Lara, was darn good as well. The film, itself, is beautiful.

The pacing wasn't that bad. I was into the film, even if it got repetitive here and there. However, I wouldn't consider it the best foreign film (sorry, Lecter... ), nor would I consider it the best film about WWII (Life is Beautiful is easily the best, IMO). Good, though. B

:boooo:

Comparing Life is Beautiful to Downfall is like comparing apples and oranges.

I love Life, but it was meant as a sort of romanticized treat. What a man did for his son to spare him the realization of such atrocity that was around them.

Downfall is all about being psychologically alienateted, perhaps (?), while perpetrating that atrocity. I didn't love it as much as Lecter, but it certainly aspired to a critical vision of the man (something never really done before). Had little film foundation on which to build on, and struggled at points to figure out how to relate the experience of those inside the Bunker. Many say it was almost too sympathetic, but I find that hard to believe.

Its the elctricity shock experiment, sort of. A study in how far people go...not a value statement, just an observation. Something to keep in mind.

I wouldn't recommend Downfall to anybody I know. Not because it is a bad movie, in fact it is rather brilliant, it is what cinematic art is all about. It challenges and creates a dialog, and it does it with the powerful lessons of history. What more could one ask for?

No, I wouldn't recommend Downfall because Downfall is such an adult picture that I do not think it should be seen by people who are not prepared to consider what it asks. It is so far beyond The Pianist and Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan that I can understand that fear that some might have in seeing it. And perhaps it's not fear, perhaps people just don't need to look at life this complicated.

Downfall reminds us that the harder we look, the more grey there is. The harder we look into the past of these people, the more that we discover that they were actually three dimensional people. That these people are *us* under a different set of circumstances. I think that's a difficult concept for some to grasp. I think Downfall is for people who can compartmentalize and find the balance between recognizing the humanity of Hitler and still recognizing the abomination of Germany's actions during the war.

It's a difficult thing. And it's even difficult to talk about.

The most powerful thing for me in the film was not Hitler (who was brilliantly played by Bruno Ganz) but slow realization of the undoing of their dreams, of the disintegration of their savior in front of their eyes. Traudl Junge makes a point at the end of the film that her crime was ignorance, was that the people did not want to acknowledge (or know at all) what was going on outside the doors of the bunker, which was why I think the above talk of having the Holocaust be more prominently featured is a bit misguided. It's just not what was going on in Berlin, it's just not what was going on in the bunker.

Certainly I feel many of them deserved death, and many ended up that way. Whether they were cowards or not is not something that I could really judge. Certainly, I would have had no problem if they were gunned down by Russian fire but, they all had to go the lonely route of finding their own path to the end. The film however doesn't vilify anybody or turn anybody into a hero. It's sober in its treatment of those involved.

The film itself is wonderfully shot, especially the first 45 minutes. With the soundtrack of the bombs falling in the background the first 45 minutes has this rhythm that dies right around the time that Hitler gives the ladies their suicide caplets... that's about 45 minutes in.

It sort of languishes and pacing becomes a problem. The film is a bit slavish to detail.

I actually like that Hitler's death wasn't shown. It's grown to be almost of mythic status and the film is able to explore that and still keep it a private event.

I really liked it. Again, it's not for people who want to see another Holocaust story, or people who don't realize the hell that the Germans unleashed outside of Berlin, but it captures a moment of time with a very specific perspective, and does it extremely well.

=================================================

Edit: The more I think about Levy's comments above, the more upset I get . I don't like the fact that we as a society have spent decades retelling the same Holocaust story over and over and yet at the same time refuse to take an intimate look at the people responsible for causing all of the carnage. Feeling sad for the Jews/etc. is exceedingly easy... making motion pictures about the Germans, their motivations, where they went wrong, their rise and fall is something that is very rarely done and at this point in history, may be the most important aspect to explore.

I too felt that the Holocaust material in Downfall looked forced. Are people going to be upset if Stephen Spielberg does not have a scene where Abrham Lincoln visits a plantation and sees the slaves first hand in Lincoln? Or will they be satisfied that he's already explored that with The Color Purple? Levy is essentially asking the film to be politically correct for the sake of making the history lesson easier to swallow. By creating "heros" and "villians" when the point of the film was to show the disintegration of the Germans, not the preserverance and salvation of the Jews. I think that's cowardly.

History is not easy, and it's not tidy.

Seems like you had the same problems I did with it andaroo. Not the content, just some toruble with the technical and film aspects of it. I too found it challenging, which is exactly why i would recommend it to mass audiances. I don't care if they don't want to see it...i still think they should. Why does everything about a war (especially when its distant enough in the past to begin the re-visitation process) need to be just "OH...the horror." There's different factors that created the space and even the after-read of atrocity that have little to do with what we want to think its about (or could lead from). I think its a great addition to the WWII/Holocaust movies and stimulates alot more thought than the Pianist. I didn't love Schidler's List as much as others, but can understand what it did at the time (opened up the topic. I think to that point there had only been one made-for-tv documentary specifically about the Camps).

Now you could watch Walk on Water?

Well, Life is Beautiful is different than this one. Personally, I'd give an A to both of them. Life is Beautiful is a very well-crafted movie with an amazing lead performance. I'd would still give the edge to Downfall because of how daring it is with its subject.

Lowering the grade to a C+ afterwards, though, is a NO NO!

I agree...on almost everything (I consider The Pianist slightly superior) as surprising as it as.

As far as the not shown death goes, the explanation of it is very simple. The death was not seen by anyone as such. No one can tell how it happened and what happened inside of that room. No witnesses = no scene.

I am also glad that the movie refrained from mentioning the Holocaust too much (I wish it refrained from doing it whatsoever, just like you and Dolce). Usually, I am not the one to say that, but in the case of this movie I would say that if anyone tells me this movie sympathizes with the Nazis, then this person simply did not understand this movie.

The movie shows rightfully that even the bad guys are people and have human traits here and there. Which makes them even more of a menace since they can live among us right here, right now and yet go unnoticed. Monster to ones, kind human being to others.

What would be your final grade, by the way?

I think people should see it, it is really one of the only "important" films of the past couple of years. I didn't think Hotel Rwanda was "excellent" (maybe B territory) but I would also say it is "important".

My only beef with it, and this is rare among motion pictures, is the world is almost not ready to explore the emotional landscape of the German side. I think people are afraid of looking into it. And it's sad, because people should be able to, and something that people will be able to do, but it's too current still, and I think people feel like they are cheating on the memory of the Holocaust victims if they focus any attention on the Germans.

That leads us into complicated discussions about sympathizing with Germans and Nazis and... critisism which doesn't help the film in my view. It needs an audience that is *beyond* those issues.


I added it to Netflix queue, added it low. I need some spacing between my world war epics


I think there are many different genres within European based World War II Films.

Among these genres are:

There is of course German and American Propoganda... Triumph of the Will type of a thing.

There are the heart tuggers... Shindler's List, The Pianist, Diary of Anne Frank... they all exist to remember the loss and heroism of the Jews/etc. and the Germans/Polish/etc. who existed in the camps or outside hiding from the Nazis. Schindler's List will forever go down as a movie which pretty much encapsulates the emotional feeling of the death of vast scores of people. The Pianist is a much more personal story and approaches the subject more like Diary of Anne Frank does. I find it hard to compare them.

Then there is the American perspective... which is a lot of 50s movies and most especially, the king of all these, Saving Private Ryan. I really love Saving Private Ryan for what it represents and tries to do, even if it isn't accurate, it I think strikes a nice balance in what it's trying to say about the American soldiers. Enemy at the Gates and World War II "action" movies also sort of fit here.

Then there is hard history from the German side. Which I think is a relatively new thing and is incredibly challenging. The film Max also can kind of be put here (although it's not that good!).

I think all of these "genres" are valid to some extent and add to the tapestry of World War II history.


Yeah. The movie is, in a generic way, about depression, suicide and madness. I think it's possible to indentify with the emotions, which makes it powerful and frightening, but like... say Prozac Nation, just because I identify with Ricci's depression and feel sorry for the characters doesn't mean I think what she does is great or that she isn't a fucking whore.

Prozac Nation is awful by the way, it's just the first self-absorbed non-Nazi story I could think of atm


I don't really grade films anymore...

Maybe an A-/B+ if I was forced to. I really think there is a lot of pacing problems in the film and it loses its sense of dread. I still think you can make the movie historically accurate, powerful, and under 2 hours. It suffered in the end for wanting to tell a story that was way too big to explore well in 2 hours and 32 minutes.

Did I ever tell you how great you are? If not, I should say it again. Walk on Water isn't a war epic at all, I just think its a good recommendation along the lines of Downfall because its starting to revisit/rethink and drop critiques around WWII. First and foremost, who still ingers on it, and for what reasons. Who has moved on, and what the set backs are...the advantages, and most importantly, longer stemmed discussions around communal identity. In this case, both Jewish history and the contemporary nation state/society. its quite smart and I think you'll find it interesting, but its not nearly so heavy handed as Downfall. Still has a leasurely pace and enough sort of comic lines. like a dramedy i guess, but some serious moment at the end where I lost my breath. A sign of how well Fox built up tension and an unstated knowledge about what just happened.

Anyways, please let me know what you thought. Except Krem who said he was going to watch it, I don't think anyone else here has. Walk on Water thread looked an aweful lot like my Moolaade one.

BEHOLD MY NETFLIX QUEUE:

I moved it up just for you Dolce.

Damn every movie I've got since I started up Netflix has been non-English. Last week was Kung Fu Hustle, Downfall and Steamboy (although I watched it in English... seemed approrpriate... being it's set in London).

(Look at all the good movies it recommends for me! I have such great taste) I'm kind of mad they didn't send me Oldboy, it was "Short Wait" earlier today. Off to watch Fear Eats the Soul. I'm thinking of starting my own thread because I'm seeing so many lately. But Walk on Water doesn't come out for another week!

*Orgasms violently*

Oh oh! What did you think of Steamboy? I actually kinda enjoyed it. I may have been over-reading the Futurist movement into it a bit (in retrospect) but I still think its the best animation to come out since Spirited Away. I have a thread on it too, so your thoughts are always welcome (seeing as how you give the some of the most insightful comments about content on this site, imo)


You'll like Fever Pitch (or I did anyways). I thought it was very good for a romcom. Alot smarter than the usual *You slept with someone else? i love you I hate you I love you I hate you* cat and mouse type plot that this genre is notorious for.

Also, gotta a thread going on Born into brothels (went to a guest lecture where the directors were there too) LDV and I am psyched about The Agronomist. Demme can do anything. I saw Agronomist when it was first released in theatres and it's a very quiet documentary. It sticks to Dominique, but is really such a progressive choice of documentary subject (open access, language, cencorship) that even when Demme isn't trying to be obvioulsy progressive, it still comes through in his work. Both are men that have a real faith in media as a form of information and thought pushing, etc.

LDV!

And I've always wanted to see Discreet Charm. mostly because the cover of the movie has this little Derby Hat on legs that is alluring.

You really should start your own thread. You know...seeing as how many your in the mood to watch and all....

andaroo? Renting The Longest Yard?!