Review – Downfall

We first met Traudl Junge in Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary, a low-budget documentary in which she tells the fascinating story of her life. Now the story hits the silver screen again, re-done as a big budget dramatic narrative production, a re-enactment of Junge’s memories with the perspectives of other participants thrown in for good measure. The result is as powerful as one would expect a tale to be when it’s set in the Fuhrerbunker in late April and early May 1945. I think this would make an interesting double feature with Gone with the Wind. They’re both really long, but in the end it would be worth it to see the death of American slavery and the death of German Nazism side by side (or at least back to back). At least one of the two countries that produced the two movies appears able to come to grips with the evil of its subject matter. Worth seeing