‘Downfall’ of an evil man and his regime

Even during his last 12 days on this earth, Adolf Hitler was He Who Must Be Obeyed. Despite being isolated in a claustrophobic bunker 15 feet below the rubble-strewn streets of Berlin, he remained someone whose will compelled obedience in both a despairing entourage and a defeated nation.

“Downfall,” the new German film that painstakingly details that period, similarly demands our attention despite its drawbacks. One of the five best foreign-language Oscar nominees, and conceivably the winner, it is more mainstream movie of the week than work of art. But the reality it confronts is so gripping, we cannot turn away. This may not be the most sophisticated retelling of what happened while Berlin burned, but what a story it is.

Surreal, in fact, is a mild word for what went down in the days after Hitler’s 56th birthday on April 20, 1945. The dimly lighted bunker and its cramped corridors was a madhouse in the midst of the charnel house that was Berlin during the end of days, with aides drunk and debauched and Hitler alternately giving medals to school boys and ranting that “the entire air force command should be shot.” When he decides to marry Eva Braun, even the Fuehrer is left speechless by an official who routinely asks for proof he is Aryan before the ceremony can proceed.

Though it is based on historical accounts, including Joachim Fest’s authoritative “Inside Hitler’s Bunker,” “Downfall’s” soul is pure Hollywood. This is a film where the drama is inevitably right on the nose, with generals shouting into telephones, shells going off at predictable intervals and people saying things like, “Fritz, pull yourself together.”

Combating these tendencies are several powerful factors, including great effort expended on physical verisimilitude. Production designer Bernd Lepel said he constructed the bunker as an enclosed set with a fixed ceiling to make viewers “feel the fetid claustrophobia” of the place and, working with Steadicam wizard Tilman Buttner (“Run Lola Run,” “Russian Ark,”) he has succeeded.

Also a force for good are the film’s very chewy, watchable performances, starting with the veteran Bruno Ganz, complete with hair plastered across his forehead, as a Hitler who goes from foaming at the mouth to shuffling around the bunker like a homeless man searching for an empty park bench. As the loyal Eva Braun, Juliane Kohler is every bit as effective as her work in “Nowhere in Africa” and “Aimee & Jaguar” would have you expect.

As the first German effort in nearly half a century to grapple with Hitler, “Downfall” has been a sensation in its home country. The reason (more about this later) is writer Bernd Eichinger and director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s decision to portray the wartime leader as a human being, someone who was nice to his dog (though he later poisoned her) and cared about the little people on his staff when he wasn’t screaming things like, “Are you questioning my orders?” and that old standby, “It is my will.”

To those who have seen “Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary,” the spectacular documentary on the Fuehrer’s personal secretary, Traudl Junge, which covered the same period, some of this material will be quite familiar. In fact, “Downfall” uses Junge’s story as one of its key sources, and the film begins with this apolitical young woman (played by Alexandra Maria Lara) getting the job from a paternal Hitler who goes out of his way to put her at ease.

Two and a half years later, down in the bunker, the German leader is in a less solicitous mood. His hands twitch noticeably when they are not snapping pencils and he is so seriously out of touch with reality he tells his generals to move divisions that no longer exist and expresses confidence in a counterattack that is physically impossible.

Surrounded by a bickering staff that tries futilely to influence his stubborn refusal to leave Berlin, the film’s Hitler reveals his loosening grasp on sanity in other ways. He tells state architect Albert Speer (Heino Ferch) that all the destruction in Berlin will make rebuilding easier after Germany wins. And he and Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (Ulrich Matthes) refuses to worry about the fate of the country’s civilians. “They gave us the mandate,” Goebbels says dismissively, sounding more like contemporary politicians than we want to hear.

“Downfall” spends a good part of its time following narrative threads outside the bunker. But these stories, like the courage of a doctor who stays to treat the wounded, and the misplaced ardor of a 13-year-old Hitler Youth soldier, are some of the film’s most standard elements.

Which is why, suffocating though it is, we are happy to get back to the bunker. One of “Downfall’s” most disturbing elements is its portrayal of how nominally intelligent people so put themselves under Hitler’s sway that they believed, as Goebbels’ wife Magda (a very strong Corinna Harfouch) puts it, “a world without National Socialism is not worth living in.”

This acknowledgment of its protagonist’s charisma points up “Downfall’s” sane approach to Hitler’s personality. Showing the German leader’s more human aspects alongside his murderous rantings doesn’t whitewash Hitler or rehabilitate him, it merely points out, whether we feel comfortable recognizing it, that ultimate evil inevitably shows up in human form. If individual nations don’t understand or acknowledge this, they will be as vulnerable when the next monster arrives as the German people were when Hitler quite legally came to power. Any film that reminds us what our darkest nature looks like has value for that reason alone.

*

‘Downfall’

MPAA rating: R for strong violence, disturbing images and some nudity

Bruno Ganz...Adolf Hitler

Alexandra Maria Lara...Traudl Junge

Corinna Harfouch...Magda Goebbels

Ulrich Matthes...Joseph Goebbels

Juliane Kohler...Eva Braun

Newmarket Films, Constantin Film and Bernd Eichinger present, a co-production with NDR, WDR, Degeto Film, ORF, EOS Production and Rai Cinema, supported by FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, Bayerischer BankenFonds, Filmfordrungsanstalt, released by Newmarket. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel. Producer Bernd Eichinger. Executive producer Christine Rothe. Screenplay by Bernd Eichinger, based on the books, “Inside Hitler’s Bunker” by Joachim Fest and “Until the Final Hour” by Traudl Junge & Melissa Muller. Director of photography Rainer Klausmann. Editor Hans Funck. Costume designer Claudia Bobsin. Music Stephan Zacharias. Production designer Bernd Lepel. Running time: 2 hours, 28 minutes.

At ArcLight; Fine Arts; Royal