Downfall (2005)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Let's be realistic.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII. The best part of Downfall is probably the infamous scene where Hitler is really losing his mind in a completely funny way and trust me that's probably the only redeeming quality of the movie cause the rest of it it's pretty much drop dead boring and just meh. The acting wasn't anything special either to be honest and the story as a whole just disappointing and not that very interesting and honestly just go and check on something else.

This film was sold as a kind of definitive account of what happened in Hitler's bunker during the final days of WWII, free from the prejudice, based on fact, made from a historical distance that allows for even the supposed monster that Hitler was to be humanised. What a load of crap. This film reinforces every single stereotype in the book, and Hitler comes across as a raving, heartless lunatic. So do all his companions, with the exception of a few figures that were never charged with any crimes anyhow, and could be allowed to be even sympathetic. People laugh at this film thanks to the numerous Hitler rants parodies that now exist in what must be tens of thousands, but I laughed at it even before these parodies became prominent. Does anyone take the persona of Adolf Hitler, as it is portrayed in the film, seriously? How is it different from the previous depictions? You see, as long as your premise is that he was the most evil man ever, and that his regime was the most inhuman ever, you will never come close to being honest or realistic in the depiction of these characters. Interestingly enough, the emotional pitch point of the film is actually the murder of Goebbels' children. The way it is presented is to strengthen the prejudice: these people were heartless killers who would even kill their children for the sake of their insane ideas. But that is not true. What do you think the fate of these children would have been had the Soviets captured them? First of all, they would have killed the parents. Then they would have either killed the children, or raised them as the most despised kids, as virtual slaves in a country that defines itself as the enemy of the ideology their parents espoused. What kind of life would that have been? As I said earlier, you cannot make an honest film if you are not prepared to look at the facts honestly. As long as you insist on maintaining stereotypes and ideological dogmas, as well as obvious propaganda, you will never make a film that will be of any value. Hopefully we will get better films as time goes by.

Good film, good performances by most of the actors, it is excellent to be a German film and not from another country, with its privileged view of the historical events that occurred in his own country and that were caused by the same. I think the film could still be better, I think there was something to it, because it is one of the most remarkable events in the history of the twentieth century. As for the controversy that the film generated, I think it has no reason to be, I think even the film is not very controversial considering its theme, in this aspect I think it could have gone further. I do not agree with anyone who says that the film "humanizes" Hitler. I do not see anything in the film that strikes me as this sense or objective, because in several scenes Hitler refers to his pride in the "works" he has performed, among which the extermination of about 6 million Jews.

Downfall projects emotions and tragedy involved while staying truthful and objective to the actual event it's depicting. It shows a wide variety of angles to the situation in a dark, realistic way. The practical effects, directing and outstanding performances make the story work when it so easily could have failed. It truly gives the feeling that people poured their heart and soul while making the film, because they believed that this specific depiction needed to exist. Which it does.