Downfall [DVD]
by Oliver Hirschbiegel
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Actor: Alexandra Maria Lara, Bruno Ganz, Corinna Harfouch, Juliane Köhler, Ulrich MatthesDirector: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Brand: GANZ,BRUNO
Producer: Bernd Eichinger
Writer: Bernd Eichinger
Producer: Christine Rothe
Producer: Doris J. Heinze
Writer: Joachim Fest
Writer: Melissa Müller
Writer: Traudl Junge
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); German (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Russian (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.78:1
Running Time: 156 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-08-02
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Downfall [DVD]
DVD Review: Demise of Gods
Summary: 4 Stars
Naum Vaiman, an author based in Holon, Israel shares this train of thought:
We had planned to become people like all peoples but instead of it we became "not this, not that."
Two movies are in my scope: a Russian one--"Moloch" (1999, Alexandr Sokurov) and a German one--"Der Untergang (2004, Oliver Hirschbigel). The last one "Der Untergang [Demise of Gods]" correlates well with German mythology and connects with a link Wagner-Hitler .
Mr.Sokurov is an outstanding filmmaker who tries to find the elusive Russian identity. He is looking for it in landscapes, soulscapes, in Platonov's writings [Platonov was a Hermingway's guru] or in resemblance to Tarkovsky's surly and slow poesy. He is looking for "the Russian soul mystery" in his films about Lenin--"Calf"--and in his "Russian Ark".
His"Moloch" seems to be a grotesque and phantasmagoric puppetry. Hitler looks like Pinocchio who lost his Malvina. Furher is portrayed as an idiot and a psychopath. But Hitler is more complex and much more interesting. Sokurov shows the Third Reich as a totalitarian regime (deception, slavishness, fear and discipline, all is very similar to the Soviet state).
I don't think it should be simplified like that since "any beast is uniquely horrific".
The scenes in Hitler's castle in the Alps are very telling. Idyllic life on the eve of the end is savored by the playwright.
Any artist's search for identity (the main problem of modern man) means to create the self-portrait. But here Sokurov is looking into Germany, not Russia.
It is not accidental. Russia and Germany are very close. They are sisters. Russian Czars were of German blood. Russian gentry and intelligentsia were very German and Russian culture is based on German ideas.
Yet-- being a Russian intellectual-- Sokurov positions himself higher than Germans. I don't think such pride is productive because-- in spite of the Soviet Union's victory in the WW II-- the dialog of cultures is not over yet.
Choosing to portray leaders only, Alexandr Sokurov shows the modern Russian quest for a leader-father-savior figure.
The German movie Der Untergang shows the last days of Hitler. Everything is serious (Germans pathologically lack sense of humor). This is collapse of the Empire, destruction of dreams, demise of gods. It is impressive and worth of our admiration. Everything is doomed but the state and military machine continue to work. They are laboring hard, working themselves to death. People fight to the last one. No repentance and no reevaluation. It is as if it should come later but at the moment Don Quixote comes to mind-- "It is not our business to count enemies, our business is to fight". Actors convince us that the German race is firm and amazingly solid. Of course, we may call it foolhardy, fanatical and inhumanely cruel but the movie makes the German nation powerful and important.
Incidentally there is no Holocaust in Der Untergang since the authors see the genocide of Jews as a small episode in the battle of titans. Hitler-- in spite of his fits of anger and his general depression-- looks very human and psychologically true (played by Bruno Ganz).
The Goebbels family infanticide- suicide is the most deep-felt scene. Greek tragedy, literally... The Germans' affection for ancient Greece (starting wish Goethe) finds its realization in the image of Hitler's secretary resembling rather a Hellenic beauty than a perfect German blonde. [1]
It seems that the basis of all life, the only reason for the continuing battle on the edge of the unavoidable destruction is the devotion and being true to one's oath. This is the supreme law. In such a world there are no "Jewish" debates on "it's worth it--it's not worth it", "advantage--no advantage". There is some supreme principle and its essence is loyalty. A tragedy is born and its pathos is heroism.
So, what's the "heroism"? It is not personal courage or self-sacrifice; it is not an infamous "love for death" which is a favorite notion of foes of Germany and heroism in general. The personal valor and self-sacrifice are functions of faith and loyalty. This film shows the other logic different from the logic of advantage and gain and this logic of loyalty is elevated to the "logic of history". But what's history? Struggle for existence? Hitler's biographer Joachim C.Fest calls Fuhrer's behavior "not fit for survival". [2]
For Sokurov--a Russian thinker--history is a theater of marionettes and its script belongs to the theater of absurd. (It should be noted, though, that Russians lose this kind of attitude when they look at their own history). For a German--and this is the foundation of the German culture which since 19th century from Goethe and Nietzsche was enlivened by the ancient Greece-- history is a great tragedy. They forget along the way that this foundation long ago became the law within the Jewish religious system. Outside this system, it becomes the rule out of context and turns into motto "Conform!" ("Morph and assimilate at all cost!") To reach a certain goal means "calculation" on the way to such a goal but "calculation" without a goal means just a momentary advantage. With such a tool these people dare to probe history; their "historic wisdom" forms a state life rife with corruption of officials and proliferation of politicians without principles.
OK, let's assume we are not for great goals and the most important thing for us is to survive. But who has pronounced that survival is reached by adaptation and not by reaching the great goal? Almost 2,000 years ago the Jewish people were defeated by Rome and enslaved forever. But the nation survived and arose from ashes. Why? Perhaps, because of its adaptability...Was it because of its fanatical, mad belief in return? Was it because of its loyalty and trust in G-d and its adherence to the faith of their fathers? The Holocaust precisely "teaches" us---adaptation and assimilation are absolutely fatal. Germans are not to blame for the genocide of Jews, Jews themselves are. Not in a sense, of course, espoused by Israeli writer A.B.Yehoshua who said -trying to explain the suicidal fervor of Jihadists-- that Jews so "antagonize" surrounding people that they feel ready to exterminate the Jewish people. It's rather in a sense of the European Jewry's strategy to assimilate, and also to self-negate themselves. Zionism was supported by the small part of the people. "Where are you, people of Judea?" sounded a desperate cry of one Zionist on the eve of catastrophe in the WW II. This strategy of assimilation and adaptation deprives people of all moral and organizational tools for resistance while disarming people on the eve of terrible showdown.
Naturally, "wise Jews" would say: "Look, what Germany achieved with her "heroism" and our "non-resistance" resulted in creation of the modern state of Israel. I would like to inform these "wise Jews" that it is logic of Kardel who wrote a book "Adolph Hitler-the Founder of Israel". [3]
Histories of great nations do not end as a consequence of grand military defeats if the spark of faith and loyalty lingers in those nations.
One and a half thousand years ago the Roman Empire was dealt a final blow in its centuries-old conflict with German tribes. Europe became a Germanic realm. Does the destruction of the Third Reich mean the end of the Germanic Europe? The end of Europe? The filmmaker Mr. Hirschbigel "express hope" for the "national rebirth". What is it-- "national rebirth"? It is not an idle question for Jews.
Nation equals culture. Culture is a pattern of nation's life, its fabric [in Hebrew MIRKAM KHAIM]. Devoid of its culture nation becomes just a populace with some ethnic features (perhaps, people with crooked noses). It often happens that nation forms from several ethnic groups but their coexistence comes to be plausible only in the framework of one culture--one language, one norm of behavior, one unity in the front of the course of history.
So what culture do we want to rebuild in the new old land? On which cultural values should we build a modern society? We often talk about a "war of cultures" in Israel. A similar war or wars flare in the entire world--Germans, Jews, Russians face cultural choices. Whose god will win in this war, whose culture will win? And whose culture won in the WW II? Could it be that all sides lost?
For the last two centuries two trends have been struggling in Europe--a universalistic trend and a nationalist one, Communism and Nazism. Both ideologies were pushed to the limit. They both crashed. Western Europe suffered more from the Nazis and it is not surprising that after war universalism gained ( along with human rights and rights of minorities). However there are deep conflicts between national cultures and alien minorities which do not want to accept a dominant national culture as theirs.
"Universalists" of all colors try to level a national culture, to uproot it historically and religiously by suggesting all-encompassing culture of relativism. But new racial and ethnic groups in Europe, mostly Islamic ones, do not want to adjust their cultural norms. Nations and nation states resist the newcomers' onslaught on their cultures. "Universalists" of all creeds try to create a new basis for the desirable unity, suggesting "all downtrodden ones together."[Proletarians of all lands unite!] The resistance of old nation-states takes an old shape of xenophobic attitudes and anti-Semitism (as usual, Jews are in vanguard of struggle against national identity). As a result, political polarization, "left" and "right", nature of conflicts and the entire situation remind Europe 100 years ago.
This motion picture Der Untergang is full with German pathos of valor and hopeless struggle, national pride and national rebirth. By doing so the movie makers become captive by values held high by the doomed people of Hitler's bunker. It is not an accident when Hitler dictates to his Greek-looking secretary his last will where he acknowledges the victory of the world Jewry. This is not a fit of madness; this is a reminder that goals stay the same.
"Centuries will pass and from ruins of our cities and artifacts renewed hatred will emerge again and again, a hatred towards the people who are ultimately responsible, the world Jewry and its allies" ("Last Will" in the biography of Hitler by Joachim C. Fest. [2]) One should try to absorb this and the fact that today "resurrected" Europe retains its deep enmity towards Israel. When advancing, Israel is hated for "oppression of the weak" and when retreating, Israel is despised for her appeasement. In the first rows of this hatred are the "left intellectuals", but why? Is it strange? No, it is not. Hitler in his "Last Will" and "last talks" (his listeners say in one voice about his "characteristic clarity" and "bygone strength of thought") regrets his lack of radicalism shown by the left, his bourgeois half-heartedness and sentimentality, his moral limitations. He regrets that he did not treat German conservatives with more cruelty, that he supported Franco and Spanish aristocracy, that he chose church instead of Communists and did not liberate the working class in France (from French relict bourgeoisie). Everywhere, Hitler said, we should have uprisings of colonized people and we should trumpet awakening of oppressed and exploited nations, push the Egyptians and Iraqis to insurgency, all the Near East." There was a chance of big politics related to Islam. It was lost" (see Hitler's Biography by J. Fest [2]).
New Left troubadours think of themselves as "people of culture". But let me ask you, "What culture?" What culture do they want to rebuild or build anew? Do they really think that the New Barbarians, for whom they fight with abandon, will start to bow not to Mohammad but to Shakespeare and Mozart? Or do they hope for the synthesis of cultures? I cannot fathom the synthesis between Kant and Mohammad. There is an old Soviet joke "If we combine a rattlesnake and a hedgehog we'll get barbed wire."
In fact, the left academia acts as if demolishing the national culture. If they become victorious the European Christian culture will end as the ancient civilizations ended. Hence all those defenders of "human rights" are digging the grave for their mother culture. What for? For "justice", that is. My acquaintance from the leftist circles once said, "The main thing for me is to have a clear conscience". I asked him whether he is ready to sacrifice his own culture--it includes struggle for minority rights-- to sacrifice his own people. "If this people are not chaste, he said, so be it." Same happened with Bolsheviks. Same happened with Hitler who said, "If German won't win they are not worth victory." We deal with the identification not by culture but with the identification by camp of "justice". Better yet to say "camp of the just". This way is absolutely universal and almost religious. For many it is a way to dupe their own conscience when instead of the concrete help for concrete people they lead an apocalyptic battle with the world evil which in turn capitalism or Zionism or imperialism and the savior or messiah is either "proletariat" or "awakening Asian East."
Even Hitler was no lesser "universalistic" than the European Left. He also tried to build a world society albeit not on classes but on racial purity and the German people were just his tool, a savior of the "rotten" mankind. When Germans failed in this role Hitler rendered a death sentence for the German people.
He said to Speer on the eve of his death explaining his order to destroy German industry: "We should not pay attention to means which are needed for the primitive life hereafter. On the contrary we better destroy these ourselves. Since this people reveal themselves as weak the future belongs now to a stronger eastern neighbor. If somebody survives after struggle they will be inferior people since all the worthy people died. [2]
Labeling nationalism the main "enemy of peace and democracy", showing it as a way to Nazi ideology or religious fundamentalism (or into the maze of the narrow particularism) the Left willingly or unwillingly find themselves in the ranks of enemies of their own people, trying to weaken them or disarm morally.
But national identity is singularly natural and healthy foundation of a person, national culture does not exclude universalism, universalism is an important part of any developed national culture.
In his Pushkin memorial speech Dostoevsky characterized Russian culture as a culture of "world responsiveness". The well known Slavophile K.S.Aksakov wrote: "Russian people are not nation, they are mankind." And German classic philosophy is universal, isn't it? Wagner in his memoirs about Paris in the 1840s says: "I was gladdened seeing in German spirit some potentialities leading to all human spheres through constrictive borders of nationality".
What's the leftists' alternative to national identity? The same assimilation project which Moscow philosopher I.N.Fridman calls "unchoseness pushed to its limit". He writes, "Assimilator Jew has his own phobia expressed in the hatred to any belongingness as such. He feels that any belongingness or identity may serve as an evidence which can be used to exclude him from picture. If a generic anti-Semite is ready only to eliminate a Jew as such, an assimilator Jew needs for his complete happiness to destroy the very idea of identifying evidence of specialness and by doing so to destroy the foundation on which mankind stands.
P.S.
Many will be appalled by the phrase "Germans are not to blame for the genocide of Jews but Jews are themselves to blame." I understand that and I must elucidate it. I won't hide behind the excesses of polemical ardor and I won't try to exonerate myself. I really feel this way: there is no hatred of Germans in my soul--it was in the past but it disappeared altogether after I had witnessed the behavior of Jews in their own state-- but I harbor a lot of hate towards some Jews. Here is an analogy: whom should I blame for terrorism and unpunished rocketing in the south and in the north? It is clear to everybody than any terror and shelling may be stopped in no time and everybody knows how to do it. But "wise" Jews say, "Our power is not limitless" ( Mikbalot Koah ). If we behave nasty, Europe will kick us in our butt and the USA will shut off the supply valves. Such behavior is not profitable. It pays to tolerate some loss of citizens to keep our high standard of living. For a quick profit we sacrifice our brothers. We are ready to evict our brothers from their houses because it would be more expensive to defend them. Isn't it similar to the behavior of Jews in Europe on the eve of the Holocaust who ignored hatred and hoped that the last pogrom would be really the last one and their turn won't arrive?
In his June 8, 2005 interview (Israeli TV channel 10) Amos Oz said that he was happy to notice that both nations (Israeli and Palestinian) got tired from fighting. I am curious where he got it from? Oh, he is a poetic seer!
Here are two things for us to ponder.
First, the outstanding Israeli writer (he is very popular in Germany) expresses joy that his people got tired. Naturally he is satisfied with the results of his activities. General tiredness is his favorite phenomenon; he thinks that it makes peace closer. If facts are against it, it is too bad for the facts. He is not humbled (his own words) by loud and hostile statements in Arabic, by terrorism, not even by Hamas victory in election. It looks like G-d himself--patronizing great writers-- whispered something to him.
I recall how our commander instructed us before meeting the Palestinian police, "If they sometimes click the rifles, do not worry, it's their way to get nervous..."
However Amos Oz -his wordings are very deft-- unwillingly gave me one statement which I'd like to use. He said that Germans as people are not to blame for the genocide of Jews but they are responsible for it.
Therefore I agree to change my phrase "Jews are not to blame for the Holocaust but they bear the responsibility for it".
If -as a result of the mortal tiredness of the nation-- a new genocide happens who should we to blame or "lay responsibility on"? Arab terrorists? Or, perhaps, those stupid and cowardly leaders in politics and spiritual life who push so hard towards "mortal tiredness"?
[1]
Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich by Joachim Fest and Margot Dembo (Paperback - Mar. 10, 2005)
[2]
Hitler by Joachim C. Fest (Paperback - Oct. 28, 2002)
[3]
Adolf Hitler - Founder of Israel: Israel in War With Jews by Hennecke Kardel (Paperback - June 6, 1996)
Description of Downfall [DVD]
Called dramatic, accurate and harrowing by the San Francisco Chronicle and nominated for the Oscar(r)for Best Foreign Film, Downfall takes you into Hitler's bunker during the brutal and harrowing last days of the Third Reich. Seen through the eyes of Hitler's infamous secretary Traudl Junge, optimism crumbles into grim realization and terror as it becomes clear that Germany's defeat is inevitable. As the Russian army circles the city, the dimly lit halls of the underground refuge become an execution chamber for the Fuhrer and his closest advisors.The riveting subject of Downfall is nothing less than the disintegration of Adolf Hitler in mind, body, and soul. A 2005 Academy Award nominee for best foreign language film, this German historical drama stars Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire) as Hitler, whose psychic meltdown is depicted in sobering detail, suggesting a fallen, pathetic dictator on the verge on insanity, resorting to suicide (along with Eva Braun and Joseph and Magda Goebbels) as his Nazi empire burns amidst chaos in mid-1945. While staging most of the film in the claustrophobic bunker where Hitler spent his final days, director Oliver Hirschbiegel (Das Experiment) dares to show the gentler human side of der Fuehrer, as opposed to the pure embodiment of evil so familiar from many other Nazi-era dramas. This balanced portrayal does not inspire sympathy, however: We simply see the complexity of Hitler's character in the greater context of his inevitable downfall, and a more realistic (and therefore more horrifying) biographical portrait of madness on both epic and intimate scales. By ending with a chilling clip from the 2002 documentary Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary, this unforgettable film gains another dimension of sobering authenticity. --Jeff Shannon
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