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 enlarge | Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Actors: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Corinna Harfouch, Ulrich Matthes, Juliane Köhler
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.94
Buy Used: $6.67
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New (52) Used (29) from $6.67
Avg. Customer Rating:  363 reviews
Sales Rank: 1396
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Ntsc
Languages: English (Subtitled), German (Original Language), Russian (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 155
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: D11545D
ISBN: 1404987606
UPC: 043396115453
EAN: 9781404987609
ASIN: B0009RCPUC
Theatrical Release Date: 2004
Release Date: August 2, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Complete with original case, disc(s), and artwork. In stock and ships right nw.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Ist keine Entschuldigen June 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Oliver Hirschbiegel "Downfall" is one of the most best written, directed, and acted films I've ever seen. It's also one of the most disturbing. Prefaced and concluded by excerpts from an actual interview with Trudl Junge, a young Bavarian woman who joined Hitler's secretarial pool in late 1942 and who was in the Fuhrerbunker when he killed himself, the film focuses on the last ten days of Hitler's life.
All of the characters one would expect to see in such a story are present. But Hirschbiegel and screenwriter Bernd Eichinger break away from the stereotypes of them as evil incarnate to present them as complexly tragic figures too. None of the key figures are morally exonerated; they come across all too often as truly brutal creatures who deserve the strongest condemnation. But we also see them as creatures who exhibit vestiges of humanity: Bruno Ganz's Hitler can be distantly caring in private even though a monster when in his role as leader; Magda Goebbels is a Nazi fanatic, but one can't help feel a bit of compassion for her mixed with revulsion when she poisons her children (the scene when the eldest daughter resists the "medicine" is heartbreaking); Eva Braun's inability to quite grasp what's happening, a characteristic of her shallow personality as much as the confusion of the final days, is both horrifying and infuriating, but also somehow touching. In short, the characters breathe, and help the viewer to go beyond one-dimensional stereotypes. Moreover, the film gives a good and chilling impression of the anarchy that broke out in Berlin as the Russian Army closed in: zealous diehard Nazis executing civilian Berliners in last-ditch attempts at "order"; children impressed into the Home Guard; ragged and starving civilians scrambling for a tin of food; SS officers committing suicide rather than surrendering; and ordinary soldiers, stripped of hope, drinking themselves into oblivion. The lessons are plain: war doesn't end neatly and cleanly. The evil wrought by warmakers such as Hitler doesn't die with them.
The visuals of the film are also superb. The Fuhrerbunker is stark, straight-lined, monochromatic, but also decorated with the occasional tacky bourgeois knicknack loved by Hitler. The blasted Berlin streets are desolating to see. The crowded underground scenes make one claustrophic.
In the interview at the film's end, Traudl Junge says that until a certain point in her post-war life, she was unable to see herself as in any way personally implicated in the horrors wrought by Hitler. She was, after all, just a secretary. But then one day she passed a monument to Sophie Scholl, the schoolgirl executed before the war for her "White Rose" resistance to the Nazis. Junge realized with a shock that Sophie and she were born in the same year. Then, Junge tells us, it came to her: even youth is no excuse--"ist keine Entschuldigen"--for either active collaboration or nonresistance to evil.
Highly recommended.
Absolutely mesmerizing. June 5, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I enjoy foreign films & am also a bit of a history buff. In the past few years I've been amazed by the quality of films coming out of Germany, & this one was particularly good. (Actually, I've always enjoyed German films, but it seems we don't get a lot of them in the U.S.) Bruno Ganz gives an amazing performance. Some may feel that it is a sympathetic portrayal, but that's not my reaction. I believe it gives a bit of a perspective on how an entire population might have been swayed by Hitler's personality, but it also reveals many of his weaknesses/idiosyncrasies/faults/pathologies. He was, after all, a human being, & this movie does show a human side to a man that orchestrated atrocities beyond comprehension. I recommend this movie as not only excellent cinema but as a reminder of history & a cautionary tale about charismatic figures.
a good story and a real mind sweaper June 1, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
when i watched this movie i was surprised and happy to see the germans takeing steps in makeing movies that teach the war from their point of view. you can not say it is 100% accruate but like all war movies it is their view and feeling on it.
this movie reminds us that thoes evil men who commited some of the worst crimes in history were indeed humen, and not only that they 100% truely belived in what the did was right and did not care if it was wrong.
some of the one star commits have some truth to them they died with no real honor but this movie was made in a way so you know how they were thinking and in their minds they made man kind better, and killed them selves in what they belived was their honor. that just shows you how and why the nazi power was unwaverd, how hitlers control was soo great that even in the end they belived in him. how ever it does show some who were afride to be cought and did not want to face trial so they ended them selvs.
some of the coments says it makes speer and others look like they were innocent good guys, the movie never makes any claims to such, nore does it try to pretend they were innocent. in the end of the the fall the german country was litterly being blown off the face of the earth, hitler wanting the whole german race to die for their weekness made it so the russians would keep on killing them till he surrenderd. not wanting to end the whole german race lots of officers even speer tried to surrender to the amercians, even himmler tried to deal with the amercians. because you want your people to survive does not make you a good guy, it just means he loved his country. now for the properganda i really did not notice any, all i noticed was it points out that a evil man such as hitler should never be forgotten cause for a short time the world revloved around his actions and it caused caos, and we should learn from this mistake the world. it also shows that even today the german people are still confused on how they should feel about him. he was a very evil man and should be hated but at the same time he is one of the most important person in their history.
if you love german fims in german with subs just remember forget the book this is a movie. i recremend this movie to all of thoes who have a learned mind and truely understands this view point, im not saying it is right or 100% accruate but it is a very good movie.
Great Historical Piece May 31, 2008
For anyone trying to understand the WW2 era in European history, this is a must. Carefully done by Germans, this movie is excellent in helping outsiders get a handle on why people did what they did. It approaches the central characters in a more 3D way, opting not to portray people as caricatures or cartoons with no soul.
Es ist aus. Der Krieg ist verloren May 22, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The greatest movies are those that capture, torture and then motivate your mind. Out of well documented tragedies of the past century, two places always evoke my imagination: Petrograd of 1917 and Berlin of 1945; both marked an inhuman end of each empire and a complete termination of previous way of living.
Downfall kept my breath stopped to the end entirely having me absorbed into this deadly oasis among human ruins. What makes this film a masterpiece is a rarely balanced measure of excellent acting and historic authenticity that reaches here the voyeuristic level: each little scene makes up a grandiose landscape of characters. Like in genuine Greek tragedy, you realize that each of these men and women was mentally trapped and could not act any other way than they did. Therein Bruno Ganz (Adolf Hitler) plays well, albeit not without a little grotesque, which Hitler, like any huge public figure, unconsciously cast upon himself. As well portrayed are Albert Speer und Magda Goebbels. Eva Braun has somewhat decadent imprint on her personality (did the Bunker abet that trait?). You watch a highly deluded man's sudden acceptance of harsh reality when it's "too late"; the grim verdict - "The war is lost" - nevertheless needed to be heard from the Fuehrer by his well informed staff, for it meant an end, a complete, total, ultimate end.
I must add I've never seen as many suicides in a movie as in Downfall: from an unknown fighter to the highest Nazi ranks, including Hitler (his suicide is shown, as it has to be, with the doors closed). In the scene where the Fuehrer was saying farewell to his close circle, preparing to leave this world, he took his Nazi membership badge off his lapel and put in on Magda Goebbels - for being the examplary German mother. Therewith the deadliest, misanthropic venom of the Fuehrer's callousness was passed over to her. How symbolic. Then comes the scene of killing of Goebbels' children by their mother's stern hand, which is an uneasy experience.
Some minor notes. In the scene with partygoers, bemused Traudl says "It's so unreal": no matter if that was ever really said so bluntly - that should've been omitted in the film - we, viewers, witness it ourselves. Secondly, it's been mentioned, Traudl is at shocking gaze when she hears Hitler speaking of Jews with his typical aversion. You cannot believe her character at this moment: she's a proffesional secretary brought up in Nazi Germany, socializing within the highest Nazi millieu, for whom hatred for Jews was in blood; you don't expect her to be THAT naive.
Like in most European films, there's no score soundtrack in Downfall (one scene has a brief sentimental music background), or maybe there is but you don't notice it while watching the film. In the end of the film you are given a brief story of each character after the war; quite impressing to find out that some of the figures in the movie just recently died or even still are alive!
Personally I found a bit distracting the fact that filming was done on dear streets of St. Petersburg, my home city, inasmuch as the modern Berlin offers very little of its imperial past (besides, as the director admits in the comments, there's no way one can "rent" a street in Berlin for a week to shoot a movie). The Moika's railings are merely more elegant that those of the Spree embankments. But, of course, that is not of importance for other viewers, - the surrounding settings really cannot be any more perfect. And what an unexpected parallel between Petrograd and Berlin!
Highly recommended.
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