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| Downfall is a fact based dramatisation of the last days of the Second World War and the gradual but eventual demise of Adolf Hitler.
In the springtime of 1945 Germany stands at the edge of defeat. With the Allied Forces attacking from the West and the Russian Forces pushing in ever more from the East almost everyone could sense the beginning of the end. However from Berlin Hitler proclaims that Germany will be victorious and orders all his Generals and troops to fight on until the very last man falls. This was the catalyst for the ‘downfall’ of the Third Reich and its followers.
With senior figures such as Himmler and Goring defecting away from their previously beloved Fuhrer, in a vein attempt to save their own lives, Hitler is left with only a few true loyal men such as Joseph Goebbels, who swore to serve and die alongside Hitler. During the final days of this bloody campaign Hitler is seen to degenerate into a dangerous state of depressive paranoia, appearing optimistic and focused one moment and then switching to almost suicidal depression the next. When the moment finally comes and Hitler is no more his armies are left with the task of finding a way to end the massacre that has become known as The Battle of Berlin.
This is a film with all intensity and emotion of a big budget Hollywood blockbuster along with the raw reality of true life events.
Click here to see an exclusive Bruno Ganz interview during his make-up transformation.
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Here's what our members thought of this title. 5 stars = very good, 1 star = poor.
 |  | "The war is lost... But if you think that I'll leave Berlin for that, you are sadly mistaken. I'd prefer to put a bullet in my head."
A compelling account of Hitler's final days as seen through the eyes of the Fuhrer's stenographer (Alexandra Maria Lara), Downfall is both incredibly well played and chillingly realistic. Bruno Ganz delivers the performance of a lifetime as Hitler, ably supported by a distinguished German cast in a film guaranteed to leave you speechless. Says director Oliver Hirschbiegel, "The final days tell us a lot about how mass fanaticism functioned in the regime's earlier years and how it continued to reign until the bitter end."
Downfall is also notable as the first German film to broach the subject of Hitler straight on since G.W. Pabst's The Last Act, released in 1956 and told from the point of view of an ordinary German soldier, played by Oskar Werner. "In terms of German film history," notes Hirschbiegel, "we are breaking new ground here, since there is no cinematic frame of reference. It was clear to me from the start that if I committed myself, it would have to be a total and complete commitment, meaning that I was going to spend two years of my life in the Third Reich, with all of those characters and that primitive ideology... My hair stood on end. My wife advised me against it. Yet I noticed that it just wouldn't leave me in peace, and in my heart, before accepting the project, I knew that I had already opened myself up to it."
Bruno Ganz was Hirschbiegel's first choice to play the role of Hitler. He sent the actor the screenplay and a copy of Joachim Fest's book. Ganz watched Pabst's film, in which stage actor Albin Skoda played Hitler. The film convinced him that it really was possible to play the dictator. "Usually you look for discrepancies with the original, but this performance took on a life of its own, and I looked at this Hitler and thought, this isn't a parody, this is acting. It is possible to approach this horrible being that was Hitler through one's fantasy and readings. For me, it was decisive to realize that this was possible."
Eichinger recalls that during screen tests in Munich, "Bruno was somewhat concerned, so I suggested he try it with make-up. And it worked right away. When the make-up artist was finished, Bruno came out in costume – he had prepared himself very well for the screen test – and the effect was so stunning that the entire crew was silent. We showed him the test afterwards and he said, with a bit of Swiss hesitation: ‘Yes, I think I should do it.'" Ganz concurs, "I was quite baffled by how close I had come to Hitler, at least on the outside. And then I was possessed by the sheer ambition that every actor knows: I wanted to play the role."
Ganz, though Swiss, captured Hitler's voice, not by parroting the ranting of his speeches, but by studying a one-of-a-kind seven-minute magnetic tape made of Hitler chatting after a dinner party, secretly recorded by a Finnish diplomat and smuggled out of Germany during the war. The accent was the easy work. The actor recalls, "I clearly remember one scene where I had a child on my lap who sang the song ‘No Fairer Land in These Times'. You know that this child and her siblings will be killed shortly thereafter by their own parents, the Goebbels. That was horrible. This is a moment where you really want to run away. There were also other difficult, trying scenes and dialogues, such as the massively anti-Semitic rants. But when I decided to take on the role, I was aware of what this meant."
A complete replica of Hitler's bunker was built on a soundstage at Bavaria Studios outside Munich. The same studio was home to another groundbreaking World War II film, Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot, and like its predecessor's submarine, Downfall's bunker was a four-walled set. Cast and crew spent weeks inside the claustrophobic bunker, which was dressed with amazing authenticity. "There was no room for fantasy," explains production designer Bernd Lepel, "for free interpretation. Our challenge was to be authentic and we achieved our desired effect. The bunker set was really claustrophobic. It was constructed so that there was nowhere for the camera to move. It couldn't get out of the way. So it was mostly shot hand-held. We used only natural source lighting, as we had a fixed ceiling, with no big overhead rigging. We wanted the audience to feel the fetid claustrophobia of the bunker."
For the exterior scenes, the filmmakers had to find locations that looked like Berlin in April 1945. "We went to a number of places, including Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Rumania," says screenwriter Bernd Eichinger. "But in St. Petersburg we found just the right streets. It's amazing how much it resembles wartime Berlin. Many German architects built there, and it's immediately apparent."
"Shooting in St. Petersburg was an adventure. Being on location is always an adventure. But there was a deeper dynamic this time, because of the horrible destruction this city suffered at the hands of the Nazis." Eichinger recalls the sight of 700 Russian extras dressed in Nazi uniform recreating the fall of Berlin in the streets of St. Petersburg. "We'd taken only our key German team and had a big Russian crew working with us. They were wonderful. The people were wonderful. Personally, I think it says something about how far we have come, to be able to make a film together now, in this city, about this subject matter."
"We wanted to shoot this film in the German language with German actors and a German director," concludes Eichinger. "The Nazi regime and World War II are certainly the darkest, most traumatic events in German history. My generation was born after the war, but of course, it is our history, too, and we have to deal with it. I think it was time for German filmmakers to have the courage to bring this material to the screen themselves. It should be a statement to all generations that intolerance, racism and fanaticism lead inexorably into the abyss."
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