BEFORE: It's a double-shot of Hitler movies today, because it's 4/20. Now, when I first planned this, making a connection here was something of a conundrum, I couldn't see the path because I was only looking at the MAIN actors in each film. But it turns out that the German filmmaking community is much smaller than the Hollywood one, and when I dug a little deeper into the cast lists, I found the connection. Still, I couldn't believe my luck, that the two films I wanted to watch about Hitler - one comedy and one drama - shared not one but TWO actors, and the 2nd lead in "Look Who's Back" was Fabian Busch, who also had a small part in "The Reader" and a small role in "Downfall". So he's the main connection.
But, there's also another actor carrying over from "Look Who's Back", and also that film had a brief clip from "Downfall" with Bruno Ganz in it, so Bruno's in all three of the movies with Fabian Busch, also. But I didn't KNOW that going in, because it's not mentioned on the IMDB credits page - their listings get a little funny when one movie features a clip from another, like that doesn't count in their book, but it does in mine.
"Downfall" also shares two OTHER actors with "The Reader", so I could have watched "Look Who's Back" and Downfall" today in either order, and the chain would have been maintained either way. That's good to know, it's a nice safety net, only it's too late to change the order, even if I wanted to. But when I stay on theme, whether it's romance, animated films for kids, or films about Nazis, it's good to have options in case I make a mistake, or get some bad intel about who's in each film's cast.
Now, I started this one late on 4/20 and finished it in the morning hours of 4/21, but I'm going to count it as being watched on Hitler's birthday. I'll double-up later in the week when the films are shorter and get back on track. A combined four and a half hours of the two Hitler films in one day is more than enough for now. But if I wanted to count this one as being watched on 4/21, that would work out too, because it happens to be Holocaust Remembrance Day. Well, this is the more serious of the two films today, but nah, I'll keep them both on 4/20, that's extra motivation to not fall behind.
THE PLOT: Traudi Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.
AFTER: I've had this 2004 film on my watchlist for a while, partially because it's on that list of "1,001 Movies to See Before You Die", and watching this gives me a current total of 426 seen from that list, with another 10 currently in my possession. I doubt that I'll ever reach 450, but who knows. But that means it's likely the definitive movie version of what went down in April of 1945 - yep, that's 75 years ago this year. And apart from the first scene in this film, which shows Hitler hiring his new secretary, the first scene in the bunker takes place on April 20, with someone wishing the Führer "Happy Birthday". So that means I picked the right DAY to watch this, though the film spans at least 10 days' time, since we know he died on April 30, 1945. As long as I hit the anniversary of one of the scenes, I guess I'm satisfied.
But it's probably going to seem a bit odd if I rate this one lower than I did "Look Who's Back", right? I mean, one film is a highly respected war drama that was nominated for an Oscar (Best Foreign Film category) and is one of the highest rated films on the IMDB, like in the Top 200, and the other is a silly satire about Hitler impossibly time-traveling to 2014. But it's all about context, what mood I as a viewer might be in on any given day, and with everything going on in the world right now, do I need to be even more stressed out by watching Hitler's regime fall apart as the Russian army invades Berlin? Do I need to see so many suicides by S.S. officers that seeing them shoot themselves in the head becomes commonplace, almost comical even? No, I don't. As usual, I prefer to have my history filtered through the lens of comedy, that's how I prefer to get my news, too. So I'd rather watch something about Hitler's final days in his bunker on a show like "Drunk History" than watch a dramatic narrative that we all know is just not going to end well. Sorry, but that's my personal preference. I think I preferred "Look Who's Back" because I also found that the humor was very relevant to the current U.S. administration, and any time I can make comparisons between Hitler and Trump, I'm a happy boy.
This is one of those films that's important, sure, and maybe everyone SHOULD watch this, but when you take just the last ten days of Hitler's life and make that the focus of a film, then it turns out that has an appalling LACK of context. We're not seeing the whole story here, there's nothing about how Hitler came to power, all of the atrocities that he was responsible for, instead we're just catching him at the very end, when everything is falling apart, and his days are numbered. I dare say it might be easy to see him as a tragic figure here, and that would be dangerous in and of itself, considering what he and his Third Reich did, we should never, ever have any sympathy for him or allow him to be portrayed as tragic in any way, he brought his ending upon himself, and he deserved every ounce of misery he felt at the end, plus a whole lot more.
He took the coward's way out, and apparently so did a lot of his S.S. soldiers, I lost count very quickly of the number of Nazi officers who preferred death over dishonor, shooting themselves in their heads with their pistols, and by the end I was almost numb to it, and that's not a good place to be in, either. There's a "Where are they now" segment before the end credits, and it turns out that not every Nazi captured by the Russians died in captivity, some were released in the mid-1950's and some managed to live until 1998 or 2003. Why were the Nazi officers so sure that the Russians would execute them, leading so many to blow their own brains out, when clearly that wasn't the case - is a sudden death better than 10 years in a Russian prison? I guess it must be.
Look, I'm not really a big World War II scholar, or even a war buff. I've been known to mix up Goebbels with Göring, I couldn't tell you Heinrich Himmler's official title, and then once I get beyond that inner circle, I'm pretty clueless about names like Albert Speer or Hermann Fegelein, or Wilhelm Mohnke - but I know there are probably a lot of experts out there who did this historical stuff, and probably love seeing these figures from history hanging out at the bunker. OK, so now I know that Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda were in the bunker, along with their six children, while Hermann Goering was not there - he was somewhere else stealing artwork or something, and waiting to take control of the government after Hitler surrendered or was killed.
For that matter, there were a LOT of people in Hitler's bunker - it looked like hundreds! Check out the big cast list below and imagine most of those people crammed into what I always thought was a tiny little bunker, only if this film is accurate, there were a lot of rooms! Council rooms, dining rooms, rooms with cots and bunk beds in them, one room just for Goebbels' family, and so on. Was there anybody left in the German army who WASN'T in that bunker? (Oh, yeah, Goering...)
Before Hitler's end, there's a lot that goes down in those last ten days - Himmler tries to get Hitler to leave Berlin, but he stays put. Then Himmler leaves to go negotiate with the Allies, leading Hitler to brand him as a traitor. Dr. Schenck is ordered to leave Berlin, but stays behind to help treat wounded soldiers with Dr. Haase. Albert Speer, minister of armaments, comes to visit, but doesn't want to follow Hitler's orders to destroy Germany's infrastructure. Eva Braun throws a party, as one does I suppose, and her brother-in-law Hermann Fegelein tries to convince her to leave Berlin, but she also stays put. General Weidling is called to the bunker to be executed for ordering his unit to retreat, only he claims he did no such thing, so Hitler promotes him. Hitler learns that SS Commander Steiner's units were to weak to launch a counter-attack, so Hitler starts yelling that all of his generals are cowards or traitors. Umm, except Weidling, I guess.
That's when Göring offers to take over the country, Speer visits again, and Hitler orders the execution of Himmler for meeting with the Allies. Supplies run low, morale plummets and the 12th Army never arrives to save them all. So Hitler writes his will, marries Eva Braun, and plans his own suicide, as one does, I guess. Whoops, sorry, World War II SPOILER ALERT. But hey, it was in all the papers, so I can't be held responsible.
Again, the portrayal of a government falling apart here, with aides and personnel being trusted allies one day and branded as traitors the next, with the end result that nobody seems to know what's going on or be able to accomplish anything, it's all too real right now, and it hits too close to home because it reminds me of the current administration and the (lack of) pandemic response. I know it's a completely different situation, only it doesn't really feel like it, not when both scenarios feature paranoid leaders who seesaw between blind optimism and childish tantrums. I'm going to have a full complement of stress dreams tonight, that's for sure.
But for now, I'm going to leave my own bunker at take a walk to see if the butcher shop near by is open today. Listening to all this German being spoken over two movies makes me want to get some authentic cold cuts, definitely some head cheese and some smoked Gouda, and whatever else I can find. Maybe some knockwurst, we'll see.
Also starring Bruno Ganz (also carrying over from archive footage in "Look Who's Back"), Alexandra Maria Lara (last seen in "The Reader"), Matthias Habich (ditto), Ulrich Matthes, Corrina Harfouch, Juliane Köhler, Thomas Kretschmann (last seen in "The Young Victoria"), Heino Ferch, Christian Berkel (last seen in "Trumbo"), André Hennicke (last seen in "A Dangerous Method"), Anna Thalbach (ditto), Götz Otto (last seen in "Cloud Atlas"), Ulrich Noethen, Christian Redl, Rolf Kanies, Michael Mendl, Birgit Minichmayr, Dietrich Hollinderbaumer, Dieter Mann, Justus von Dohnanyi (last seen in "Woman in Gold"), Alexander Held (last seen in "Schindler's List"), Donevan Gunia, Thomas Thieme (also carrying over from "Look Who's Back"), Thomas Limpinsel, Hans H. Steinberg, Heinrich Schmieder, Klaus B. Wolf, Thorsten Krohn, Jürgen Tonkel, Igor Romanov, Igor Bubenchikov, Michael Brandner (last seen in "The Monuments Men"), Christian Hoening, Bettina Redlich, Devid Striesow, Elizaveta Boyarskaya, Mathias Gnädiger, Alexander Slastin, Elena Dreyden, Olver Stritzel, Aline Sokar, Charlotte Stoiber, Gregory Borlein, Julia Bauer, Laura Borlein, Amelie Menges, Norbert Heckner, Silke Nikowski, Leopold von Buttlar, Veit Stübner, Oleg Khoroshilov, Mariya Semyonova, Boris Schwarzmann, Oleg Popov, Mikhail Tryasorukov, Vsevolod Tsurilo, Vasiliy Reutov, Jurij Schrader.
RATING: 5 out of 10 cyanide capsules
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