10 Movies That Made You Sympathise With Terrible People
2. Downfall
Of all the people to feel sympathetic towards, Adolf Hitler is only on the list of other terrible people. Downfall follows the final days of Hitler’s life before he kills himself to avoid capture.
Downfall proved controversial for obvious reasons. German newspaper The Bild asked “Are we allowed to show the monster as a human being?” Others have praised the bravery of the film for daring to show Hitler’s humanity and his vulnerability as his evil empire crumbles around him.
It is a tough pill to swallow (no pun intended), but when it comes to any real life atrocities, we have to come to terms with the fact that it is always humans, not monsters, that commit them. Not only was Hitler a real human, he was a charismatic leader of an entire nation.
He managed to convince a nation to despise its minorities to such an extent that it led to mass genocide. He was politics taken to its most unimaginably awful and evil. And all the while he was a human appealing to other humans. This is what is so scary about Hitler, and so scary about the current state of world politics. Downfall is not trying to sweeten the pill (no pun intended) when portraying Hitler. By humanising him it warns us of the dangers of demagoguery.