DVD/150: DER UNTERGANG (DOWNFALL) (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004)

The perfect VE Day viewing: Oliver Hirschbiegel's gruelling DER UNTERGANG which shows the downfall of the Reich with Adolf Hitler cornered in his bunker with a diminishing group of advisors, Eva Braun and staff including young Traudl Junge, a secretary, whose memoir the film is partly based on.

Hirschbiegel captures the terror on the streets of Berlin as the Russians advance and the army, are augmented by the Hitler Youth, committed to their Fuhrer to the bitter end. 

DOWNFALL's flaw is that Traudl Junge is too passive a character: she types and takes dictation but remains a blank canvess.

Bruno Ganz is stunning as Hitler; DOWNFALL was criticized for depicting Hitler in a sympathetic light but no sympathy is sought where Hitler flies into fearful rages over non-existant troops or demands the people of Germany die for being too weak.

Equally unforgettable is Corinna Harfouch's chilling, murderous Magda Goebbels.

Shelf or charity shop? Although destined for the limbo of my DVD plastic storage box, I will definitely watch this again for Ganz's towering performance, Harfouch's icy portrayal of a woman willing to kill her childen rather than have them live in a world without the Fuhrer and a bevy of fine performances by Ulrich Matthes as Goebbels, Juliane Kohler's Eva Braun, Heino Ferch as Albert Speer, Christian Berkel as the doctor Ernst-Gunther Schenck, André Hennicke as Mohnke and Alexandra Maria Lara as Traudl Junge.

MERRY XMAS CONSTANT READER!!! A Wild Duck is no turkey...

 
Yes after all that pushing and shoving in shops and on Oxford Street, the regimental planning that goes into my card lists, the fear of starvation due to Budgens closing for one *whole* day... it's here! And what a quiet day it's been, what with O *and* m' Ma up in Newcastle - not together I hasten to add! As there is squit-all on the tv I have watched a few music dvds: 2 x Ed Sullivan Show complilations of Motown acts, Take That's video anthology and a collection of Barbara Cook's 1960s tv appearances.

Andrew dropped by this morning and gave me my Christmas Day present, the wonderful film DOWNFALL starring Bruno Ganz as Hitler. I'll have the paper hat on watching Mrs. Goebbels poison the kids soon...

Have I seen my last theatre of 2005? I went on Friday night to the Donmar Warehouse to see Ibsen's THE WILD DUCK in an excellent production directed by Michael Grandage.

A wonderfully ironic production to be on at this seaon of good will, this devastating play shows how sometimes ignorance really *is* bliss. Gregors Werle, the son of a wealthy businessman returns home after 15 years to discover that his father allowed Ekdal, his business partner, to carry the can for a wrong business move resulting in him falling on hard times. 

Ekdal's son, Hjalmar was his best friend at University and Gregors discovers too that his own father privately financed his friend to become the town portrait photographer and also engineered Hjalmar's marriage to a former servant who left his house when his wife accused them of having an affair. 

Gregors is furious and determines that Hjalmar must be told that his whole life is built on the money of the man who ruined his father. He talks his way into being Hjalmar's lodger and starts on his campaign of Truth.... with devastating results.

Ben Daniels is horrifyingly good as Gregors - the most hissable villain on stage this Christmas - a man who knowingly destroys his friend's life because some absurd notion of The Right Truth. In a world endanged by the terrorist and the neo-con this is a very timely play. 

Paul Hilton and Michele Fairley give fine performances as Hjalmar and Gina whose life is turned upside down due to an outsider's social experiment and Sinead Matthews is heart-breaking as their daughter Hedwig. Excellent support from Nicholas le Prevost as the neighbour doctor who sees through Gregors actions, William Gaunt and Peter Eyre as the two fathers and Susan Brown as Gregors' soon-to-be stepmother.