Customer Reviews
"Powerful stuff" - By: Bob Marlowe, 27 Aug 2008 
This is an excellent depiction of the final days of the 3rd Reich. Boldly the filmakers have protrayed the Nazis not as inhuman monsters but as real people who dissociated themsleves from their acts to such a degree that they were touched by evil.
We are shown a group of people who didn't reallly live in the real world & were evil becuase they were capable of justifying anything to themselves. The audience identification character is Traudi Jung a young secretary to Hitler, at the start of the film delighted to have got a job close to the Fuhrer.
Drawn into the inner circle as the war draws toward its conclusion she witnesses the unravelling of a group of people who had staked everyting on the Hitler's mad dreams. No one comes across as very likeable, even Speer the Nazi who famously said sorry, is only leaving to save his own skin.
Incredible performances show the hysteria in the bunker & Bruno Ganz's standout performance as Hitler captures a man on the edge of a breakdown. Occasionallly the shouting is a bit too much & not as powerful as scenes offering a shake in his hand or a facial expression to convey what's going on in his mind. But that is a very minor point.
Even though he bears only a passing resemblance to Hitler (for which I'm sure he's very grateful)Ganz's capture of those mannerisms we've seen in surviving footage is so exact, the scene where he makes his last public appearance to pin medals on the young heroes of Berlin is almost indistinguishable from the newsreel.
The end of a real life nightmare is brought to life with great talent & a coda explaining the fate of most of the characters & alllowing the real Traudi Jung the last word is a fitting end.
The subtitles as well as translating explain off screen noises too which should be of benefit to those who are hard of hearing.
strongly recommended.
Downfall 1 Disc Edition - By: Spider Monkey, 11 Jan 2008 This is an incredible film. It has some very moving & powerful scenes & is told very well. It offers up an alternative view of the war & covers a side rarely seen in similar films. It is quite harrowing in places but well worth it. It will stay with you for a long time & is alll the better for it.
The definitive film about Hilter - By: Bluebell, 17 Nov 2007 This is a superb film: the best about the Second World War I've ever seen. The actor playing Hitler is stunning: the definitive portrayal; but alll the other characters are excellently done, too. By the end of film one feels that one has witnessed history unfolding.
Stunning depiction of last few days of WW II inside Hitler's bunker - By: Mr. Stephen Kennedy, 09 Jan 2007 This is a near flawless movie, well deserving of a wide audience. The fact that it is a German movie which required watching subtitles, may put some people off - but the reality is that the German actors give this much more resonance than any Hollywood version could have.
Much has been said about the fantastic performance of Bruno Ganz as Hitler. This is his movie, no doubt. It should also be mentioned, however, that alll of the performances are so spot on that we are removed from a theatrical overview of events, & truly become part of life in the bunker. So many movies of this period show either the two dimensional Nazi bad guys & Hitler as a raving lunatic & nothing else, or a dispassionate overview of the tactics of the battle for Berlin. This movie achieves something rare - a real personal insight into the characters & how they informed the battle tactics & actions of individuals.
Our view into this world is through the young & naive private secretary Traudl Junge, who wrote one of the books on which the movie is based. Thus, historical accuracy is very high. But what we see is an insight into the humanity of Hitler - in one moment warm & compassionate, the next brutal & vulgar. We can understand through Ganz' portrayal the charisma the man must have had to attract such loyal devotion.
Do not be fooled into thinking that a movie about life in the bunker will be smalll scale low budget sets.. the movie ventures outside & we get glimpses of some terrible battle scenes. Those with DTS capability for surround sound will be richly rewarded. The scenes of a war ravaged Berlin are incredibly real - in fact, shot in Saint Petersburg.
Towards the end the scenes become more & more disturbing as the veneer of normality is stripped away as the war looms closer. Scenes of suicides & murders are truly disturbing - not least the scene where Magda Goebbels, having sworn her children should not survive in a world without National Socialism, calmly murders them in their sleep, one at a time, before calmly sitting down to a game of cards.
At once compelling in the drama of a city at war, & engrossing for its insight into characters normallly cinema is too scared to show as humanity, this is perhaps one of the most insightful movies into the horror of National Socialism in WW II & the man who created it. The movie is bookended by the real Traudl Junge speaking in a 2001 documentary, adding an entirely appropriate coda to the movie showing its relevance to alll of us.
Thoroughly & unreservedly recommended.
