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Go see "Downfall"


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Go see the German made movie "Downfall". Nominated for Best Foriegn Film at the 2005 Academy Awards, it is a film about the last few days of the Third Reich. Centered in Berlin, it is not only a excellent "Bunker" movie (and I've seen'm all - Alec Guiness, Anthony Hopkins, etc.) it is an excellent view of the fighting for Berlin in 1945.

The script pulls heavily from the personal memroirs of Hitler's secretaries (Frau Junge is a principle character in the film) and sets and characters are excellent.

One of the better war movies I have seen in a while.

DavidI

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Bruno Ganz is the best actor Ive ever seen. Hes amazing in playing Hitler. I found the scene quite devilish when Hitler gets the nervous breakdown in front of his Generals and confesses for the first time that the war is lost.

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Originally posted by Doodlebug:

I think it might be due for release April 1st ( but don't hold me to that)

Sounds like a April Fools day joke. :D

I've heard great things about this movie for awhile now. Anybody have any idea when and if it will be in US theatres?

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Thanks for the info David. I'll start looking around for it.

Btw, while i was snooping around, i came across this site, which can help people find it in their area. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be playing close to my area as of yet.

[ March 29, 2005, 04:37 PM: Message edited by: MeatEtr ]

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Originally posted by MeatEtr:

Thanks for the info David. I'll start looking around for it.

Btw, while i was snooping around, i came across this site, which can help people find it in their area. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be playing close to my area as of yet.

If you go to the site MeatEtr posted, there's a trailer and two clips to watche; about 4 1/2 minutes. It looks good.
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It is a pleasant surprise that it is playing in at least two theaters in Austin.

The movie is dark, intense and immersing. Do not go to see it, if you are depressed. Ganz does a great job as Hitler. The movie has few combat scenes. Instead it focuses on the people and events in and just outside Hitler's Berlin bunker in April 1945. It is most interesting that all the important characters [historical figures] were dead by the date the film was released in Germany.

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Guest ExplodingMonkey

How does it compair to Das Boot in terms of historical following and belivability? I personally find 'Boot' to be the best in these areas.

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Originally posted by ExplodingMonkey:

How does it compair to Das Boot in terms of historical following and belivability? I personally find 'Boot' to be the best in these areas.

If you have read Berlin the Downfall (Berlin 1945) by Anthony Beevor you might find this movie very much historical. I personally liked it and its look on things with the war as a horrifying backdrop of an end of an era. Few battlescenes but still very very intense movie.

-LT

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Originally posted by Larry Thorne:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by ExplodingMonkey:

How does it compair to Das Boot in terms of historical following and belivability? I personally find 'Boot' to be the best in these areas.

If you have read Berlin the Downfall (Berlin 1945) by Anthony Beevor you might find this movie very much historical. I personally liked it and its look on things with the war as a horrifying backdrop of an end of an era. Few battlescenes but still very very intense movie.

-LT </font>

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Guest ExplodingMonkey

All I have of Beevor is Stalingrad, but I do have Ryan's The Last Battle (it's my only 'Last Days/Battle for Berlin' book.

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Just saw it yesterday, excellent movie. Ironically, I had also just finished reading "The Fall of Berlin", but apparently a different version, by Anthony Read and David Fisher.

Anyway, it was great to see the scenes and personalities brought to life, and with decent production qualities. They weren't long battle scenes, but still intense; and it was chilling to see the 12 year old boys and girls ready to die at the flak batteries.

Ganz was fabulous, and I thought the Goebbels were both excellent as well. Weidling and Mohnke were well done, too. Overall there was a great feel of the impending doom and immenent... downfall... that awaited Berlin.

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I thought it was good, but there is nothing new in this one. There are many characters that are never explained - Rochus Misch, for example. You kind of have to read O'Donnel's book THE BUNKER to understand a lot of what is going on. As a visual aid to some of the serious written treatments, I think the movie shines.

Try here for a better understanding of German culture

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i think michael came right to the point here: the film is worth watching if you know the whole story anyway. most european historians condemned the film as beng too kind to the nazi elite, especially regarding speer and schenck. without any preparatory reading, the film might even be a dangerous thing to watch. for it doesn't try to argue with fascism; indeed, it comes close to underlining its appeal. showing the ss as brave and unbowing defenders of berlin, portraying infamous nazi war criminals as heroic saviours of the civilians (like the film does with schenck)etc

i felt uneasy after leaving the theatre.

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Originally posted by Radetzky:

i think michael came right to the point here: the film is worth watching if you know the whole story anyway. most european historians condemned the film as beng too kind to the nazi elite, especially regarding speer and schenck. without any preparatory reading, the film might even be a dangerous thing to watch. for it doesn't try to argue with fascism; indeed, it comes close to underlining its appeal. showing the ss as brave and unbowing defenders of berlin, portraying infamous nazi war criminals as heroic saviours of the civilians (like the film does with schenck)etc

i felt uneasy after leaving the theatre.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is the same Mohnke in the film - bravely and stalwartly defending Berlin - the same Mohnke whom in June 1944 was murdering unarmed Canadian prisoners of war in Normandy? Even by SS standards he was considered loopy.
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that's him. believe it or not, this affair is no big deal in germany. i wonder if the canadians will accept this man being shown this way?

if you're interested in the subject, take a look

at http://grad.usask.ca/gateway/archive9.html. it's

not new but summarizes the whole affair quite convincingly, i'd say. the author seems sensible and

aware of what he's doing.

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Originally posted by Radetzky:

that's him. believe it or not, this affair is no big deal in germany. i wonder if the canadians will accept this man being shown this way?

if you're interested in the subject, take a look

at http://grad.usask.ca/gateway/archive9.html. it's

not new but summarizes the whole affair quite convincingly, i'd say. the author seems sensible and

aware of what he's doing.

Good link, thanks. I just read CONDUCT UNBECOMING which included stuff about Meyer's trial, as well as documenting the murders. I've put up a partial list of the fallen on my own website, so the matter is of interest to me.

I don't doubt that the matter is "little fish" (the phrase Meyer used to describe the Canadians) in Germany; placed against the panorama of the entire war, it was indeed a small matter to them.

The Fallen

Equally disturbing was the portrayal of Fegelein as handsome, loving and brave. Doubtless he was "all that" but what little I've read about his time as a combat commander in the Florian Geyer in the East leads me to think there was more to him than that...

O'Donnel suggests in his book that instead of simply snorting cocaine (I was surprised to see that reference in the movie - did they really do that in Germany in the 1940s?) he was actually liasing with a "leak" in the German security apparatus, and was another reason he was shot. This may have been fantasy on O'Donnel's part as his book isn't footnoted.

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michael

i have to admit i never visited your websides before. that's a pity, bc they're very well done and contain a lot of good information.

when talking about the last days of the hitler era,

one should always consider the fact that after the

attempt to kill the "leader" in the summer of '44, german security purged the few decent remaining officers and citizens. hitlers personal entourage consisted of true believers and any personal accounts of innocence given after the war are highly questionable and must be seen as attempts to disguise the truth. the staff and personnel of the bunker were checked over and over again by the gestapo, so that there should be no second try to kill the dictator.

about the waffen-ss cavalry division "florian geyer" must be said : they were plain murderers.

i'd like to recommend 2 books i read a while ago,

they're collections of personal war accounts of german soldiers who served in the wehrmacht. i'm not sure if they have been translated into english. they've

been published by rowohlt books(hamburg 1998) and piper books (munich 2004): http://www.piper.de/web/books/3492240321.html

http://www.sokrates-digital.de/produktkatalog/RT60558.php

if you can get a translation - a must read!

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