I've been meaning to watch this one for a long time, and I decided it was time to dive in. This movie is based on two books: Inside Hitler's Bunker by Joakim Fest and Until the Final Hour by Traudl Junge and Melissa Muller.
This movie is focused on the last days of Hitler. It also focuses on Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge. Brief snippets of an interview with her are shown at the beginning and the end of the movie. There are also a few other little threads that come together throughout the film.
I'm not going to go into plot points. A basic knowledge of the end days of the Reich will be sufficient to give you an idea on what is going on. What I will address is some of the acting and thoughts I had afterwards.
I commend the man who portrayed Hitler. It can't be easy to agree to that role, and Bruno Ganz spent a great deal of time studying the man, especially the way he spoke. Apparently, there was a lot of controversy portraying Hitler as a human being when in reality he was such a monster. The thing is, he didn't show that monster at all times. A whole country doesn't fanatically support someone who they straight up know is a monster. I think it's more important to study the charisma and tactics used to draw all those people into his spell. I thought Ganz did an excellent job. I never thought Hitler was a sympathetic character in this film, or that I was supposed to view him as anything different than I did before.
Another thing that struck me was how much time was spent in the bunker. People were sweating and bored. I read it wasn't quite as loud and rowdy, but the facts were fairly accurate. The children were heartbreaking. The Goebbels made me sick, and even though I knew what they did to their children, watching it was heartbreaking.
Traudl is such an interesting person. I was already watching one of her books (waiting for a price drop), so it wasn't surprising to discover the movie was based on something she wrote. She was a young woman, and she attributed her naivete on her youth. At the interview snippet at the end, she mentioned seeing a memorial plaque to Sophie Scholl, who died at the same age she was hired by Hitler. Youth was no longer an excuse. I really hope to read her books one day.
The movie doesn't touch on the Holocaust, and I'm glad it doesn't. Hitler does spew his antisemitic rants, but trying to add the horrors of the Holocaust to this already 2.5 hour movie would have meant they either didn't have time to explore it correctly, or the movie would be 10 hours long. World War II was a large, expansive event, and you just can't cover everything.
I liked this movie for what it was. Saying it was enjoyable would be too much, but it's a good movie and a worthwhile movie. The version I watched was in German with English subtitles, and I liked listening to them speak in their native language. The end of the movie gives closure to most of the main characters of the movie who didn't have a definite ending during the runtime, and I appreciated that. This is definitely one of the better movies I've watched lately, and I recommend it. Good Movie!
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