“Downfall” is a genocide movie with an ostensibly happy ending: Hitler offs himself and the Nazi regime falls to the advancing Soviets. Made in Germany, the film provoked some controversy there for its humanizing portrait of Adolf Hitler. Swiss actor Bruno Ganz is mesmerizing and utterly convincing as Hitler as he slowly comes to grips with the end of his regime and his life. Still the film does not make him out to be a warm or attractive character, although Ganz does evoke some of the (waning) charisma of a man who convinced a nation to follow him into mass murder and world war and who inspired such insane loyalty from his top lieutenants that they follow him into the abyss and take their kids with them.
Rather, the film portrays a more personal monster who sends children into hopeless battle against Soviet tanks and demands that his generals never surrender, while he plots his own suicide.
The most devastating scenes in “Downfall” deal with the suffering of Berlin’s civilians, who must contend with both Allied bombs and marauding SS vigilantes lynching “deserters.” Ganz’ Hitler grumles “there are no civilians in a war like this.” Tragically, every army that has followed has agreed with that sentiment. For that brief moment, “Downfall” holds a mirror to a much more personal monster: all of us who are complicit in our nations’ war crimes.