A Saturday night with Hitler

I wanted to spend my Saturday night with something blonde, but the pet store was all out of golden retrievers.
So Blue Eye and me decided to go to 'Der Untergang', a supposedly shocking movie which supposedly would show a 'human' Hitler.
All I saw, for about 150 very long and boring minutes, was someone without any human depth at all. (This from a guy who sits through five documentaries from 'The World at War' in a row.) Bruno Ganz portrayed a Hitler very much like the monster we knew already: a ruthless murderer who (don't they just love these wonderful little contradictory quirks - yawn) was also a vegetarian and really kind to Eva Braun and his cook.
Thanks, Bruno, but we knew that. What we'd like to know is if there was anything more to him than clichés from a junior high history book.
The truth is that Germany probably isn't ready to make a truly innovative film about Hitler. That country has been nearly masochistic in wallowing about its World War II guilt. This film, by laying at least part of the responsibility of what happened by the Nazi ideology and Hitler rather than endless emotional flagellating, means they are finally moving beyond that. (Not that they forewent the flagellating entirely.)
Perhaps they should have put a little sign on the cinema stating 'Germans only', although I suppose I see how that could have offended some people.
I did like the part where nearly defeated Nazis had mindless sex, though that could just have been my imagination trying to overcompensate for lots of overacted bunker scenes.

10:57

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