That Hitler guy

Over the weekend Wendell and I watched a magnificent move called "The Downfall." It's about Hitler's the last ten days of life. Ten days he spent in his bunker in Berlin. It was fascinating. The actor, Bruno Ganz, who played Hitler was mesmerizing. He put a human face on the dictator which I think is important. We all should remember that Hitler was just a guy and someone like him can pop up any time and ride a wave a nationalism and threaten our entire world. It's shocking when you find yourself empathizing with Hitler when he almost cries when his dog is the first to be killed when all is lost.

Some of the reviews I've read compared the scenes of street fighting in Berlin to "Saving Private Ryan" and I just didn't see it. The sets were amazing and the acting superb but it didn't have the realism of Ryan or "Band of Brothers." The special effects were closer to "The Longest Day" than "Saving Private Ryan."

That wasn't all that important, though. What grabbed me was the madness and that famous "banality of evil" that was portrayed so convincingly in the movie. I guess that's the power of film or theater: the human face it can put on the most monstrous of our aspects.