Movie "Downfall" (About Hitler's last days)

[colt45s]

i agree
a great film and the guy who plays hitler is the best ia have seen,have to agree with others as well the only way to really appreciate this film is to have the language in german and use the subtuitles to understand it (if like me you cant speak german) hate films where hitler and others speak in american or britsh accents
stu

starring BRUNOGANZ, I bought a copy as I knew I would watch it more than one time, and I did

[Stahlhelm]

starring BRUNOGANZ, I bought a copy as I knew I would watch it more than one time, and I did

I've already watched it five or six times myself. It seems I never get tired of it. Each time I watch it, it seems I'm noticing something I didn't notice the last time.

Chris

[chris clark]

on surround sound alone at home the first shells comming in are so real , if you ever had that experiance to me another great like the iron cross

[Stahlhelm]

on surround sound alone at home the first shells comming in are so real , if you ever had that experiance to me another great like the iron cross

Yes, I know exactly what you mean about the realism of the incoming shells and explosions in that movie. I doubt if it could have sounded any more real if you had been there yourself.

Chris

[JG 51]

A great movie. The best portrait of hitler that I ever seen. Since I saw the intervju with Traudl Junge before the movie came, was it really intresting to see the parts of her testamony. Would be great to see a simular movie about the rise of the third reich in the future.

[Husme]

For my without doubt she has been one of the best warlike films than I have seen in my life, mainly by its realism, military materíal and photographs, also on the other hand the good that all the actors work, mainly the protagonist.

[rgaraymd]

What impressed me the most is that Bruno Ganz is a Swiss jew. Imagine playing that role for him. Having to play the part of the man responsible for the extermination of your people. Very impressive. Cheers, Raul

[robertdmountfor]

What impressed me the most is that Bruno Ganz is a Swiss jew. Imagine playing that role for him. Having to play the part of the man responsible for the extermination of your people. Very impressive. Cheers, Raul

Swiss yes, jew, no.

[rgaraymd]

I stand corrected. Cheers, Raul.

[billmunny]

PS On Downfall...

So, I've seen the film Downfall a couple times, and I like it--its very well done.

BUT, I've always been troubled that there is no mention of the mass rape that was going on in Poland, Germany and other places occupied by Soviet troops, and I was was curious that Traudl Junge manages to just walk away from the encirclement by Soviet troops..even drunken Soviet soldiers at that. Well, the ending of Mohnke's group is very different than the film.

Together with others in the bunker, Gerda Christian, Traudl Junge, Else Krüger and Constanze Manziarly left the bunker on May 1st under SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke's leadership. This group slowly made its way north hoping to link-up with to a German army hold-out on the Prinzenallee. Truth is, the group, hiding in a cellar, was captured by the Soviets on the morning of 2 May.

Like many other German women during the fall of Berlin in 1945, Gerda Christian was repeatedly gang raped by soldiers of the Red Army in the woods near Berlin.

Likewise, Traudl Junge was raped repeatedly by Russian soldiers, and was subsequently held for a year as the "personal prisoner" of a Russian major. And at least one author asserts that Junge suffered a fractured skull while resisting a gang rape.

And finally, despite the film stating Manziarly vanished in 1945--which technically she did, Junge recounts Manziarly being taken into a U-Bahn subway tunnel by two Soviet soldiers, reassuring the group that "They are just going to see my papers."

As I said, I thought it was a good film, but this "she rode off (literally, on a bicycle) off into sunset" ending is serious BS.

[BrianK]

Made in Russia?

I think that the film was made in Russia, or at least parts were filmed there. Perhaps that is the reason for the omission of the Russian brutality story. And since the appears no money to be made with stories of Russian war crimes & concentration camps, it is rarely brought up. Have you ever heard of anybody asking the Russian govt. for reparations for victims of Russian war crimes?

[billmunny]

seriously...

You may be right, Brian, I believe the film was shot partly in St. Petersburg...I just think it leaves a huge hole in the otherwise great movie to not even reference this real brutality (I know the Germans were no brutal in Russia), esp. when they go to such lengths to depict the hangings of "deserters" by the SS, but that Junge would literally be shown riding off on a bike in the German forest with a big happy smile is just plain silly...

[Peter Mii]

Can someone tell me were you can buy the subtitled version of the movie, on the net?
Thanks, Peter

Found one on E-Bay

[Michael Miller]

I enjoyed it, but had trouble with the uniform and insignia errors, and the total lack of resemblance of some of the actors to the men they were portraying (particularly the guys who played Goebbels [if I recall correctly- it's been a while since I've seen it- the actor who played Goebbels portrayed him as a quiet nonentity with no personality, quite the opposite of the real Dr. G; "Bormann" too has almost no role in the film, although he was the most powerful man in the Party at that time] and Dr. Ernst Robert Grawitz [the guy who blew himself up with his family at the dinner table- big hulk of an actor, clean-shaven, whereas the real Grawitz was small, slender, with a moustache]). To get really nitpicky, "Fegelein" doesn't wear the Swords to the Ritterkreuz, but does wear the Nahkampfspange in Gold (he only received the Silver); he also wears SS-Brigf. insignia- F. was an SS-Gruf. by that time. Robert Ritter von Greim wears the wrong rank insignia (he was a Generaloberst, not General der Flieger; promoted Generalfeldmarschall 25.04.1945); also, they left off his oakleaves and swords.

On a positive note, the tragic and disgusting murder by Magda Goebbels of her own children was very well done and almost impossible to watch.


~ Mike

[colt45s]

When I was at the hotel in Berlin we had to go underground to cross the street, the blue & white tile walls in the walk way were used in the filming of the bunker , did you notice that?