BEFORE: Well, here we are, this is one of those wayposts I set for myself at the start of the year, so on some level, mission accomplished. I could not have predicted that I'd be sequestered at home, technically unemployed while a pandemic ravages New York City and U.S. politics would be approaching a boiling point. Who can ever see such things? Anyway, it's Hitler's birthday, which is a dubious sort of holiday at best, and we only really know this because of stoners who want to light up at 4:20 pm, or Neo-Nazis who made the news a couple of years ago and probably DO consider this a real holiday. It's not, unless you want to take some time today to remember what happened in Germany in order to insure that it never happens again. However, some people would say that it DID happen again, in one form or another, though I'm not naming any names here, so maybe it is important to pause and think about how we got where we are. They can try to hide behind terms like "alt-right" or "neo-conservatives" or, umm, "hipsters", but come on, we really know what they're all on about.
I should point out that just by watching a film (or two) about Hitler today, this should not be considered an endorsement of his politics, or what he stood for, or a defense in any way. Yes, I am of (mostly) German descent, but there's some Irish and Polish mixed in there too, so I'm not "pure" by the standards of the Fuhrer. Anyway, I found out that my German ancestors on one side came from Alsace-Lorraine, a territory that has changed hands between Germany and France so many times that for all I know, I should be calling myself part French, too. I'm down with that, it's the part of France where their cuisine looks very, well, German. So proud.
I've got this uncanny ability to second-guess my own linking chain, so when I saw that Lena Olin was in "The Reader", I wondered why I didn't link to "Fanny & Alexander" and do a proper Bergman chain, I could have linked back through his films in reverse order, ending with "The Seventh Seal" as a tribute to Max von Sydow. From there I could have watched "A Kiss Before Dying", linked via Matt Dillon to a film with Bruno Ganz in it, from there to "Downfall" and ended up right back here on April 30 (the date of Hitler's death) rather than the date of his birth. So just for kicks I charted that path out, and sure enough, that would have meant the end of my chain - I would then have nowhere to go from today's film, the only connection would be back to "The Reader", so that's a dead end, no chance of another "perfect year" that way. See, I was right in the first place - now I just have to learn to trust my own instincts. Quite often there can be a better way to re-work the chain, but it's not always the case.
So, Fabian Busch carries over from "The Reader". He had a small role in yesterday's film as a lawyer, but a much larger part to play today.
THE PLOT: Adolf Hitler wakes up in the 21st century. He quickly gains some media attention, but while Germans find him hilarious and charming, Hitler makes some serious observations about society.
AFTER: Perhaps this originated as one of those "thought experiments", like "What if George Washington showed up today, in Washington DC, what would he think of our country?" Would he stand in awe of the modern marvels that he saw before him, or would he get sick to his stomach once he saw how partisan politics have divided our country? What would he think about cars, cell phones, Pop Rocks and Lady Gaga? Similarly, if any of us could sleep for 100 years or more and wake up at the same age, would we even recognize the world, assuming that it still existed? Would it be a post-apocalyptic hellscape or a paradise? We'll never know, because it turns out that cryogenic freezing is a bunch of bullshit, they can't revive you on the other side, I heard they cut off your head or something before they freeze you, what good does that do you 100 years later? So until there's real time travel, all answers to the above questions are purely theoretical.
But somehow, in this film, Hitler wakes up in 2014, and other than being very confused, he's none the worse for wear. Umm, yeah, explanations here are noticably absent, just roll with it, because German comedies turn out to be very rare indeed, so since this is a satirical comedy (I think) let's chalk it up to time travel, or a wormhole or perhaps some kind of magical restoration brought on by the zeitgeist.
("spirit of the times"). Don't call it a comeback, but Hitler's back with a brand new invention ("Eis Eis, Baby"). Just kidding, it's the same old racism.
We quickly find out that Hitler has some very strong opinions about the modern world. He digs the idea of television, what a great tool for spreading propaganda to the masses! But he soon changes his mind when he watches a cooking show and some reality TV. Yeah, that sounds about right. He doesn't care much for hip-hop (I'm with him there) or its frequent use of the N-word, I guess he only ever wanted to use it in a derogatory way, not as a sign of friendship. Makes sense. He loves the look of the newer cars, remember back when he was around the first time, all cars were very boxy and non-aerodynamic. I bet he would have loved to see how Volkswagens caught on, but the film didn't pick up on this opportunity.
Rather quickly, he falls in with a recently-fired TV segment director, who's been making a film about lower-class kids playing soccer (sorry, football or "fusball") but the TV executives just aren't interested. Naturally, he mistakes the revived Hitler to be an impersonator, and films him as a character actor interacting with German citizens, having political discussions, sort of "Ali G" or "Borat"-style. The average German's reaction to being approached by Hitler in a pub or on the street is kind of a mix of confusion and disbelief, but here, more often than not, they end up agreeing with what he has to say. Unless they're old enough to remember World War II, then they're usually scared, even if they think he's not the real thing. Other people mistake him for one of those costumed people walking around in a public place, posing for photos - is that a thing in Germany? Too soon?
Then from something as innocent as a conversation with a dog-breeder, we realize that old Hitler hasn't changed one bit. But you can imagine one of those AKC people thinking along his mental lines, when he points out that if you allow a German shepherd to mate with a dachshund, what do you have? According to dog fanciers, you're diluting the "purity" of the breed, creating a "mutt". Honestly, it's not a big leap from there to eugenics. I remember the first time we went to Las Vegas, we visited the zoo at the Mirage that held Siegfried & Roy's white tigers (this was in 2003, a few months before the biting incident) and while listening to the audio-tour, hearing the magicians with their German (Austrian?) accents, talking about mating white tigers with other white tigers to preserve the "purity" of the species, I felt a chill run through my body, it was a little too close to Hitler's reasoning for maintaining the Aryan race back in the day.
What rings true here is that most people have forgotten how Hitler came to power in the first place, he was charismatic enough to win an election, despite the horribly racist speeches and anti-immigrant rhetoric, he took advantage of a vulnerable populace, making empty promises and hiding his real agenda. Gee, I don't know, that sort of reminds me of somebody else. But then once he took office, he started rounding up people with ethnic backgrounds he didn't like and putting them in camps and cages. Wait, wait, that feels familiar, too - don't tell me, I'll get it, just give me a minute. And then we have to remember that his policies caused the deaths of thousands and thousands of people. I swear, this is right on the tip of my tongue, I'm gonna figure this out, who the hell does Hitler remind me of? Somebody else with a huge ego and a bad combover, right?
It took maybe 70 years, but some Germans are finally able to laugh about Hitler - I guess that's a good thing, because it shows some personal growth, but I'm still torn wondering if that's ultimately positive. Sure, Mel Brooks did it in "The Producers", but as I saw in the documentary "The Last Laugh", Jewish people kind of get a pass on this, and rightfully so. If the Gentiles start laughing too, the danger is in people letting their guard down, and allowing anti-Semitism to flourish again. Which, unfortunately, has been the case in America, and no doubt in Germany, too. There's an interesting point made here when Hitler is talking to a modern German politician who hates Islamic people (though he called them "Salafists", and I admit I had to look that word up) yet at the same time, he acknowledges that he's benefited greatly from taking advantage of the public's Islamophobia. So, by extension, Trump and the alt-right might hate Mexican immigrants, for example, but if they weren't in our country, then who would they have angry speeches about? Just as we need non-documented immigrants to perform tasks like farm labor that most Americans don't want to do, the haters need them too, because if they weren't here, who would they hate?
Here Hitler ends up on the sketch comedy show "Krass Alter", (roughly, "Whoa, Dude!") only he doesn't perform the jokes that the writers gave him. (Sample: "What does a Jewish pedophile say? Hey, kid, wanna buy some candy?"). Instead he rails against the state of television today, among other things, and Hitler calls it a "great abyss". He's not wrong, it's taken the place of religion from Karl Marx's quote calling it the "opium of the people". So when religion is on TV, that's a double-whammy, right? Look, I agree, most TV sucks, but what are you gonna do, stop watching? We've got to pass the time somehow during all this sheltering in place, maybe if you can watch a little less, maybe balance it out with some books or crossword puzzles, or have a conversation with your family, you'll be better off in the long run.
My big problem is that this film gets too meta at the end - in Germany, this film is titled "Er ist wieder da", which means "He's here again." And within the film, Hitler writes a book with the same title, "Er ist wieder da", and wouldn't you know, that book gets turned into a movie which looks suspiciously like the movie that I just watched, only with different actors playing the roles that I saw actors in. So there's a film-within-the-film which is somehow supposed to be the film I watched, only different. So when I see the end of my film, which one am I seeing, the end of the film or the film-within-the-film, and are they the same, or different, and if they're different, in what way? This is "Little Women" all over again, and it's part cop-out and part paradox or logical impossibility. What is or isn't real in this Hitler-based "Inception"? Either everything or nothing is real, I'm going with nothing - but this is how sophomore-level students used to end their short movies in film school, it's really amateurish.
But as a bonus, there are visual references here to other time-travel movies, like one character wears clothing similar to Marty McFly in "Back to the Future", the lightning effects around Hitler appearing in the present are similar to the ones seen in "The Terminator", and there's a slow-motion action scene late in the film that mimics the angles of the airport finale in "12 Monkeys". There may be more. Now, me, I would love to make an action film about that old conundrum about traveling back in time to try to kill Hitler when he was a baby. In this scenario, Hitler's mother would be a real bad-ass, like Linda Hamilton-style, but she'd be weary from having to constantly defend baby Adolf from all the time-travelers from different future eras, all trying to make a name for themselves by changing the past. (You can't do this, for several reasons, one of which is the theoretical paradox that would be created...). I even have the perfect name picked out, I would call the film "The Germanator". Yeah, it would be something of a parody. But it's a good idea, right?
Also starring Oliver Masucci, Katja Riemann, Christoph Maria Herbst, Franziska Wulf, Michael Kessler, Thomas Thieme, Michael Ostrowski, Lars Rudolph, Ramona Kunze-Libnow, Gudrun Ritter (last seen in "Hanna"), Stephan Grossmann, Christoph Zrenner, Fred Aaron Blake, Bernardo Arias Porras, Jakob Bieber, Maximilian Strestik, Marian Meder, Piet Fuchs, Paul Maaß, Jens Reimann, Christian Harting, with cameos from Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, Joko Winterscheidt, Daniel Aminati, Jörg Thadeusz, Frank Plasberg, Roberto Blanco, Micaela Schafer, Kim Gloss, Dagi Bee, and archive footage of Bruno Ganz (also carrying over from "The Reader"), Angela Merkel (last seen in "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power"), Geert Wilders.
RATING: 6 out of 10 "Hitler selfies"
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