Monday, August 29, 2005

Der Untergang


Blame it on my passion for history and the derived fantasies (which I like to call the lessons of history), I saw perhaps, one of the best and most disturbing movies about Third Reich. Its about the final days of Adolf Hitler in his bunker till his suicide, as narrated by his final stenographer Frau Traudl Jung. The name is Der Untergang (The Fall) or the USA working title is : The Downfall.
The actor playing Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz) deserves an Oscar for this memmorable performance. The motion picture is simply amazing. AMAZING!!!!! AMAZING!!!!!!
A word of caution: No film ever gave me nightmares; not even Nightmare of elm street (not that it was scary, but the name). I was truly disturbed after watching Der Untergang. The movie truly portrays the fact that men are driven by ideas in their purest form. Ideas harden, and become permanent after a while. This permanance is derived by the abandoning of the perhaps only characteristic property of an idea: the contemplating doubts and the questioning thoughts -- hence the idea becomes a belief. Men had done such terrible things for what they believe in. When men believe, the humanity suffers.
"Men are always judged by their ability to produce, except for the war - when they are judged on their ability to destroy." -- Will Durant, Lessons of History.

3 comments:

Vincent said...

I have seen Hitlers Sekretärin. This Der Untergang is not a documentary, however. I think it doesnt even fit in the docu-drama category. Its a full fledged movie.Have you seen the one about mussolini?

car said...

absolutely right on target. We fought hard to rid the world of crazy ideas and philosophies and I pray we don't have to do it again because of all the liberal thinking, anti-war sentiment and filthy hippy doctrines popping up all over our country.

shyloh's poetry said...

Hello Vincent,
Very interesting post. I must rent the movies mentioned here.