This weekend I watched "Mein Führer", the new German comedy about Hitler. As you might expect, the fact that a director decided to make a comedy on this subject has gotten a lot of knickers in a twist.
The movie has been hammered by critics in Germany, and a bit ignored abroad. Since the director is Jewish and his mother a Holocaust survivor the critics weren't able to attack his integrity, so they went after the movie itself. The main charges were: it's not funny; the director could not decide on one tone, and the movie hovers between farce, slapstick, and drama.
The scenario of the movie is pregnant with possibilities: It's December 1944, the war is starting to go seriously wrong for Germany; Berlin is heavily bombed. Hitler is depressed. Goebbels decides to orchestrate a great New Year's rally and speech by Hitler to motivate the people into what he terms "total war". To prepare the desmotivated Hitler for the speech, he sends for Adolf Grünbaum, a Jewish actor who used to be famous and is now in a concentration camp.
The fact is the movie is not a work of genius and there are jokes that simply never take off. For example, the portrayal of Hitler's impotence when trying to boink Eva Braun isn't very effective. But there are plenty of funny moments: Himmler has had his shoulder broken during a visit to the front and so his arm is on a propped cast, which makes it seem that he is permanently Heil Hitlering; Goebbels giving oral sex to his secretary under the desk, and as he receives a visitor unexpectedly, picking out a pubic hair from his tongue, after packing off the secretary. There is just something inherently funny and subversive about Goebbels and pubic hair.
The accusation that the movie seems not to settle on one tone is true. There are in fact two parts to the film: the parts relating to the Nazis are usually purely humorous, while the parts relating to the plight of Adolf Grünbaum, the main character, are more dramatic in nature. The movie doesn't soft-pedal the plight of being a Jew in 1944 Germany: at the beginning of the movie there's a scene where Grunbaum is taken to the showers prior to being taken to Berlin. The look of fear as Grunbaum awaits what he believes is the gas that will kill him, and the expression of relief when the shower head emits not gas but water are very real. Also affecting is the later scene when Grunbaum, who has demanded that everyone in his concentration camp is released in return for his coaching Hitler, speaks to a fellow inmate to confirm that the Nazis have indeed let the inmates go. We get to see his friend, who looks like he was roughed up and is being threatened with a gun by a SS officer, lie to him under duress and reassure him everyone is mad with joy at having been let go.
Nonetheless, the movie is particularly successful when the humorous tone adopted with the Nazi bigwigs is mingled with the drama of the horror of the situation of Grunbaum and his loved ones. For example, when Hitler during a coaching session with Grunbaum starts taunting him with boxing jabs and with musings of why Jews don't do sport and are weak -- Grunbaum, in a blink of an eye, lets out an uncontrollable right jab that KOs Hitler. In the situation that ensues Grunbaum realizes what he did and panics about the room, dragging Hitler and placing his feet on a chair, answering the door when the guards knock asking if everything's OK and replying with a nervous smile that the Fuhrer is doing some relaxation exercises -- that situation is successful in melding the ridiculous and the dramatic. On one level it's a funny idea that a small Jewish man has just knocked Hitler to the ground, but on the other level we are aware behind the farce that ensues, that at the same time Grunbaum is probably doomed for what he has done.
Ultimately, the main objection to the movie is that it excuses Hitler too much: he comes out as a rather pathetic figure, a bed-wetter, insecure, scarred by his father's constant disdain and abuse towards him, and as not really in charge. He even develops a liking for and dependence on Grunbaum. I do think Levy, the director, does soft-pedal Hitler a bit too much, especially in comparison to the other Nazi bigwigs.
Finally, if nothing else the film is successful in one thing: all these critics have said that we must remember what Hitler did and the horrors of the Holocaust; the purpose of this is to prevent this from ever happening again. Well, this portrait of Hitler as impotent, indecisive, and a bed-wetter is guaranteed not to excite any misguided youths into neo-nazism. What feeds neo-nazism are exactly the portrayals of Hitler as a personification of implacable power and extremism.
I think this is just another step in dealing with Hitler's legacy. Another movie that recently also caused a similar controversy was Downfall, an excellent (dramatic) movie about the last days of Hitler's life. In the movie Hitler was accurately portrayed as he was: a ranting megalomaniac, with no concern for the deaths of millions in his ego-building wars, but also someone who was exceptionally considerate and humane with his young secretary and other people close to him. That Hitler wasn't a total rabid monster every moment of his life, that he could be humane, only makes it more urgent that we consider how a human being seemingly so normal in some circumstances could be so hate-filled and monstrous in others -- it makes it more thought-provoking and challenging, and is not simply a diabolical caricature of Hitler that excuses any serious thought.
In closing, to the holier-than-thou critics -- hey, your attitude in telling people what they can and can't laugh about is faintly... uhhh, what's the word... oh, Hitleresque.
