»Controversy over film's Hitler portrayal«

Reporter: Kirsten Aiken
TONY EASTLEY: One of Germany's first attempts to "characterise" Adolf Hitler in film is proving controversial. After the premiere of "The Downfall" in Berlin, critics have accused the film's producers of portraying Hitler as a human being instead of a monster.

Kirsten Aiken reports.

KIRSTIN AIKEN: The holocaust is referred to only briefly, and the dictator with the clipped Bavarian Austrian accent is portrayed as a soft-spoken dreamer who enjoys chocolate cake.

The film also characterises Adolf Hitler as a man who occasionally acts kindly towards his female staff, as well as Eva Braun – the woman he married one day before they committed joint suicide.

This is how Doctor Rolf Giesen from the Berlin Film Museum describes it.

ROLF GIESEN: We just have seen Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Jesus Christ", and now we see the passion of Adolf Hitler.

KIRSTEN AIKEN: The downfall is the story of Adolf Hitler's last 12 days, holed up in a bunker in Berlin during the Soviet advance.

ROLF GIESEN: It is not the first time that they show Adolf Hitler on the screen, but it certainly is the first time that they try to discover the human touch in that monster, and you feel in a few minutes, even, you feel with that man.

ISABEL MARSHALL: I had very strong emotional reactions to this film. For me it was a little bit like a nightmare I couldn't get out of.

KIRSTEN AIKEN: Art historian Isabel Marshall.

Critics warn the film panders to revisionists who want to play down the holocaust. But Ms Marshall argues its screening is proof of Germany's social progress.

ISABEL MARSHALL: Pretty sure that there might be some people who are going to use this film in a way which will not necessarily be very positive for Germany as well. But I think that this just has to happen at a certain point, and that we have to discuss this film, and it is a good film in many ways.

KIRSTEN AIKEN: The film's producer says to understand history you must understand the people who make it. And it's for that reason that Dr Rolf Giesen agrees it is the right time for a film like this one to be screened, no matter the controversy it causes.

ROLF GIESEN: It is aimed at the generation that didn't know about the terrors of World War II and national socialism, and this – even this youth – will find it a fascinating side to the fatalism of evil.

TONY EASTLEY: Dr Rolf Giesen.