Der letzte Akt

Seems to be historically accurate, resisting the temptation to caricature, very similar to downfall.

Made only ten years after the actual events, and set in the Bunker under the Reichstag, Pabst's film is wholly gripping. It reeks of sulfurous death awaiting the perpetrators of world war. Haven't seen this in over three decades, but it remains strong in my visual and emotional memory. The characters seem to be waiting to be walled up in their cave. Searing bit of dialog between two Generals: "Does God exist?" "If He did, we wouldn't." Shame this is not more readily available for exhibition or purchase because it would be interesting to view and compare this film with the documentary about Traudl Junge, "Im Toten Winkel" {aka "Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary") and "Downfall" with Bruno Ganz.

I saw this obscure German film in Toronto in 1956, my first exposure to Oskar Werner. A "sleeper" of a movie for me, but so long ago and it seems never to be seen again. The topic has been treated many times but never, I think, to such effect. The last days in the bunker are entirely through the wondering subjective eyes of Werner, as Captain Wuest, a rather unimportant guardsman. Hitler and his henchmen are always kept at a distance, the way Wuest views them from his station, and what stands out in my memory is the finale of a drunken champagne party as though in celebration of something, but in reality as their means to forget the impending doom looming ahead as the Russians can be heard closing in. The problem with films portraying famous or infamous people is that they are almost always unbelievable because we are unwilling to suspend our disbelief, aware that they are actors up there trying to imitate the unknowable. Here, at least for the English speaking audience, the problem does not arise, we understand only through subtitles, and we hear the characters speaking in their own language. And, thank God, it is in black and white. The impact of the film stays with me still, and of course, Werner was a major revelation.

The last two or three days of Hitler's life in the Bunker are portrayed from a variety of viewpoints: Oskar Werner, a captain from the German army in the Baltic states, there to ask Hitler for reinforcement; Herta Angst, a 13-year-old trooper raised to defend the city, one of fifty survivors out of 5000; Erik Frey, one of the generals who worked out the details of the plan to dynamite the tunnels, flooding them and the thousands of civilians sheltering there; and the occupants of the lesser ranks, sitting in the commissary, dancing, getting drunk, while Albin Skoda, driven mad by the spectre of failure and the amphetamine cocktails supplied him by his doctor, swings between paranoia, mania, and the depths of depression.

It's a movie about madness, and the habit of obedience, which is madness in and of itself, a warning by director Georg Wilhelm Pabst, that echoes through current events, with one character stating that the encirclement of Berlin and its inevitable destruction is part of some years-long plan .... or so Goebbels will claim the next day. It's a tirade against the cult of personality and the tyranny of individuals who can order the deaths of thousands of wounded, women, and children while moaning about the unfairness to the tyrant. It might have been produced this year, with a different tyrant or would-be tyrant in the center of the storm. Skoda gives a great performance, if you can stand looking at him.

With that title and subject, Pabst could reasonably have called this his last film and retired. He was, after all, 70 years old. But he directed three more movies over the next couple of years before calling it quits. He died on May 29, 1967, three months shy of his 82nd birthday.

I remember this film from many years ago. Certainly the best film on the subject in my experience. The fact that I vividly remember so much of the film after so long a time testifies to its impact.

It is difficult to comment on the level of the performances because of the language barrier. But they were nonetheless very powerful.

This subject continues to fascinate us even with the passing of years. And it was most effectively treated here, with the proper proportion of historical perspective and skepticism.

I wish it would be shown on TV at least once. Or at least be available on tape or DVD. Or is it? Is some art film archive hoarding a copy of it??