Films

Der Untergang [2004]

Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Actor: Bruno Ganz

Der Untergang, or “The Downfall,” tells the story of the last days of Adolf Hitler as he slowly slips further down into his insanity, plagued by defeat, betrayal as well as the almost undying loyalty of most of his people. Everything weighed down heavily on Adolf Hitler the last few days in the bunker underneath Berlin.

The movie, heavily critised for showing Hitler’s humanity, shows a side of the war that very few people have ever seen, mostly because of lack of interest. When thinking of the second world war, people don’t want to think of the Germans as people, but rather as the enemy. People don’t want to think of Hitler the man, but rather as Hitler the monster.

After the war Germany slowly came to grips with the scope of the war, the attrocities and the wide spread genocide. Many simply couldn’t believe it, and so the Germans started the first of four phases of WWII education. The first phase was to educate the people about the war. The second phase to educate about the events behind the war that few had any knowledge of. (Read: the attrocities.) These two phases were hardly emotional and information was delivered with a certain amount of dispassionatism, in order for the Germans to get used to certain concepts without immediately feeling guilty and defensive.

This film is from the fourth and final phase; with all the emotional content necessary for the full weight of the war to come crashing down on a well-prepared nation of Germans.

The film starts with a small audio-clip from an interview with Traudl, Hitler’s personal secretary during the war and main character from the film, from 2002, the year she passed away. The film also ends with a small part of the interview, video this time, in which she realises that while she didn’t know about the genocide, she could’ve known, had she wanted to, and the guilt she felt for being so naive.

In between, the film is a tale of the almost surreal moments in Berlin, right before the Russians marched in and cleaned house. Hitler, surrounded by his generals and Feldmarschalls, convinced that the fall of Berlin is not a given, while most of his generals have accepted what he has not; that the war is over and that capitulation is the only option for the German people’s survival. Hitler, wracked by feelings of betrayal at such heresy, refuses to believe it. What struck me was how many of the generals said; “We capitulated in 1918. We will never do that again,” indicating clearly how the Treaty of Versailles – known among many Germans as the Versailles Diktat, which shows just how they experienced it – was considered a humiliation of the highest order.

From the Hitler Jugend getting rewarded the Iron Cross for successfully operating the anti-tank cannons, to the drunken debauchery of the mid-level officers who had already given up on the war, to the massive loyalty to an insane leader, to the scene in which everyone seems to be discussing the best ways to commit suicide, this film is full of surreal moments, in which you can’t quite believe, though fully realise, that this is the way it must’ve been near the end of the war.

The film ends, as I said, with a small clip from the interview with Traudl, followed up with a summary of what happened with most of the men and women in the film after the capitulation. What struck me, most of all, and which made me incredibly emotional, was that the SS officer who went into Hitler’s room, to confirm that he and Eva Braun had commited suicide is still alive today, living in Hamburg. It’s the thought that in another few years the generation that had first hand accounts of a war that was so detrimental to the formation of our society today will no longer be there to tell us about it.

History gets written by the victor, or so the saying goes. But I think that in recent years, unless a people have been wiped out or surpressed in the aftermath of a war, they have had a chance to tell their tale. To make sure that historical accounts didn’t get muddled up. The German survivors of the second world war are probably one of the first generations of war-survivors to be able to do that, and it took them nearly 60 years to do it.

Pauly Shore Is Dead [2003]

Director: Pauly Shore
Actor: Pauly Shore

This film stars Pauly Shore, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Sean Penn, Fred Durst, Chris Rock, Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Sizemore, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Johnny Sanchez, and the list goes on and on and on…

This film was a hilarious, self-deprecating film, made by Pauly Shore. I used to love Pauly Shore, and I almost forgot about him until I ran across this film in which he kills himself in order to revive his career. He’s got a lot of celebraties to talk smack about him. Really forgotten motherfuckers, too…like Rico Suave! I laughed my ass off, but I think that might have been the mood I was in.

The Manchurian Candidate (2004) [2004]

Director: Jonathan Demme
Actor: Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, Meryl Streep, Jeffrey Wright, Jon Voight

First off, I’d like to tell you the story of the original Manchurian Candidate from 1962, starring Frank Sinatra, directed by John Frankenheimer; The film, because of it’s rather sensitive subject matter was not going to be produced because the president of United Artists, Arthur Krim, was also Finance Chairman of the Democratic party and very politically inclined. As a personal favour to his friend Sinatra, President Kennedy convinced Krim that it was alright to make the film. The film was supposed to be a satire, but got a grim overtone when after the release of the film Kennedy was shot dead by Lee Harvey Oswald, whom many conspiracy theorist claim was a Manchurian Candidate. The film stayed in circulation until the late seventies, when the rights to the film reverted to Sinatra, who halted distribution, giving rise to all kinds of speculation. After his death, the rights fell into the hands of Tina Sinatra, Frank’s daughter, who was one of the producers of the 2004 remake.

The film is about Major Ben Marco [Denzel Washington], who, together with his squadron, was ambushed in Kuwait in 1991 while on a reconnaisance mission. He was knocked unconscious and only through the brave efforts of Sgt. Shaw [Liev Schreiber] – a son of a US senator who, in a fit of rebellion against his dominant mother ran away from home and enlisted in the army, refusing an officer’s position – did the squadron survive with only two casualties and made it through the desert on a three day trek to safety. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest award a soldier can hope to achieve.

When Ben is confronted, years later, by one of the soldiers from his squadron, the confused Pvt. Al Melvin, who seems confused, paranoid and claims to have lucid dreams of brainwashing, he, too, starts to have dreams that seem more real than the events surrounding the ambush he remembers experiencing.

Meanwhile Sgt. Shaw is now Congressman Shaw, having been shoehorned into politics by his influential mother Senator Pretiss Shaw [Sterile Creep] and will be on the presidential election ticket as running mate.

Unable to get back in contact with Pvt. Melvin, Ben tries to get in contact with Shaw, since it seems he is the only other surviving member of the squadron besides Melvin and himself. At first Shaw gives him the cold shoulder, but later, out of respect for his former commanding officer, decides to talk about the dreams Ben’s having over take-away food. Having found an implanted chip in his shoulder earlier that day, Ben comes across as paranoid and confused, and while Shaw is campaigning he can’t have any distractions, nor can he afford to induldge in Ben’s delusions. Ben claims Shaw, too, has an implant in his shoulder and when Shaw refuses to let Ben check, he attacks him.

Slowly Ben is losing his mind, and he’s trying to part fact from fiction as his drive for the truth becomes more and more obsessed. Slowly he starts finding out the truth about the ambush in the Kuwaiti desert, and he tries with all his might to convince people that his discoveries could prove to be a danger to the sovereignty of the country.

Training Day, John Q, Man on Fire, Manchurian Candidate. Denzel Washington is proving by and large that he is a fine actor, and I have no doubt that, if he keeps this up, in the years ahead he’ll earn many more oscars that he can put with the two he already has.

Liev Schreiber, whom I had only before seen in the Scream series, proves to be a hell of a good actor, and Sterile Creep isn’t as jarring as she normally is in films, and actually preformed really well.

Man on Fire [2004]

Director: Tony Scott
Actor: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Christopher Walken, Mickey Rourke

Wow, this film, a remake of a 1987 film of the same name, starring nobody, oh and Joe Pesci, is pretty damned violent for an American blockbuster. Not Michael Bay or Sylvester Stallone violent, but nasty, gritty violent.

Denzel Washington plays Creasy, an ex-military man whose record is as impressive as it is scary. Intelligence, counter-terrorism, covert ops; the works.

If alarmbells aren’t ringing with you yet, it means you weren’t conscious throughout the 80s and early-90s, when films about these types were wide spread and saturated the screen. Usually tough as nails, strong and silent types, who kill for revenge without feeling or remorse, those films were about body-count. Commando, is a good example, where Schwartzenegger murders an entire island of people to get his daughter back.

Denzel, in stark contrast to Schwartzenegger, can really act, which makes this relatively straight forward film worth while. Oh, and Tony Scott, too, but I’ll get to that in a bit. Creasy is indeed an ex-military man with incredible skill. He’s also a complete fucking drunk, unable to get through the night without a bottle of Johnny Walker at his side. He’s a burn out, washed up and not worth much. He goes to visit his friend Rayburn, who moved to Mexico years back. The reason, he claims, was a whim, but the impression is built that he’s fighting some terrible, terrible deamons. He searches out the one man with whom he can talk about the things he’s done and seen. In contrast to Creasy, Rayburn is a jovial fellow, dealing with the same deamons, but in a far less destructive manner.

Rayburn arranges for Creasy to work as a bodyguard for the daughter of an Mexican industrialist, Ramos, who’s facing financial trouble. Creasy’s cheap, compared to others, because he drinks. Ramos can’t afford the expensive bodyguards but he still wants to make his wife, a demanding Americana, happy, and keep his daughter in the best safety he can afford. In Mexico City, there’s one kidnapping per 60 minutes, the intro of the film tells us, not politically motivated, like in Colombia, but strictly for money.

Pita, Ramos’ daughter, slowly becomes good friends with Creasy, and teaches him that it’s okay to live again, to love again and to take a little joy in life. Of course the girl gets kidnapped ten minutes after he feels confident enough to live a little and he spends the rest of the film getting revenge on the ones who kidnapped her out from under his care, leaving him to die, and killing her when the money-drop goes sour.

Denzel Washington is amazing. He’s a brilliant actor, but the other half of what makes this film is Tony Scott’s brilliant cinematography. The film is quickly cut, panic-ee and…well, it’s like Traffic, but it uses a lot of sub-titling. Americans – and most English speaking people – don’t like subtitling, so he’s done it in a very clever way, reminding me of the title sequence to Seven.

If you like action films, and you don’t mind a little depth, then I highly recommend this film.

AvP: Alien vs Predator [2004]

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Actor: Sanaa Lathan

It’s been a while since I’ve offered a movie review – in fact, it’s been a while since I posted here, period – and that’s partly because I’ve been busy, but also because I just haven’t seen that many noteworthy movies. If a movie doesn’t appeal to me, I usually won’t write a derecommendation, unless it’s really really bad. With AvP I’m not entirely sure what it’ll be yet. Having sat next to two archaeologists, I had a really good time with this film, but mostly because it’s so incredibly riddled with ridiculous shit that it becomes funny. In fact, the movie is a pretty terrible, run-of-the-mill, get-a-bunch-of-pretty-people-in-a-difficult-situation-and-watch-them-squirm, film, much like Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid is guaranteed to be terrible for the same reason.

However,…

…it is Aliens vs Predators; two of the coolest alien adversaries created on the silver screen since…forever. As everyone knows by now, the AvP is a film based on computer game. When that computer game came out around the turn of the century I was incredibly sceptical. These two, seemingly disconnected alien entities in the same game/film? Like Sigourney Weaver said; that sounds awful. But then I spoke to Veed, and he told me about the comic book. Comic book? Yeah, comic book. There’s a comic book. And the background of this comic book isn’t even half that bad. Predators use aliens for the hunt, and them as prey for their rights of passage. Kill one of these things and you’re no longer a youth; you’re an adult. Okay, interesting.

The film tells a story of a polar expedition going to excavate and research a pyramid found on the antarctic, one that’s shown up on sattelites as having a strange, unnatural heatsource. In go the researches who stumble upon what is essentially an Egyptian pyramid on steroids. Complete with sliding walls, pit-traps and rolling boulders the likes of which will make Indiana Jones salivate in glee. Essentially, the pyramid is made for the hunt; a complex labyrinth that changes every ten minutes. All meant for an exciting and challenging hunt. In the bowels of the place there’s a hostage; an Alien queen, whose soul purpose is to squeeze out pods from which facehuggers come. Facehuggers create chestbursters in almost anything they can find, and hey presto the boys can become men provided they kick the shit out of these aliens.

The film is kind of campy, but it has awoken an apetite in me to learn more about the background of this war between Aliens and Predators, so I guess it’s not all bad.