Film Screening 30th September, 2005

Poster for Daffy the Commando

Daffy the Commando 

8:00 PM, 30th September, 2005
No Guests

  • G
  • 8 mins
  • 1943
  • Friz Freleng
  • Michael Maltese
  • Mel Blanc

The early, more unhinged, incarnation of Daffy goes behind enemy lines in WW2 to cause havoc. With special guest star Adolph Hitler!

Poster for The Downfall

The Downfall 

8:10 PM, 30th September, 2005
No Guests

  • MA
  • 156 mins
  • 2004
  • Oliver Hirschbiegel
  • Bernd Eichenger
  • Bruno Ganz, Juliane Kahler, Alexandra Maria Lara, Ulrich Matthes

It's April, 1945. The Russian Army are on the outskirts of Berlin - close enough to shell the city centre. Adolf Hitler is in an underground bunker ("the last station in his flight from reality), refusing to surrender, summoning to his defence armies which no longer exist. The war will continue to a bitter end. Everyone holed up in this bunker is guilty of collaborating in mass murder (guilty in different ways, to different degrees, for different reasons; nonetheless, guilty)- but if you think this means that we can't feel sorry for them, well, perhaps you need to see the film to be shown otherwise. Hitler, we perhaps need to be reminded, was not a demon from the planet Zmeeg; he was a human being; and even as a shell of a man in the final weeks of his life, still wreaking evil on the world, someone we can understand. We can begin to understand his followers, too. That's what's chilling; and would there be any point in telling this story otherwise?

P.S.: The film concludes with real footage of Traudl Junge (Hitler's final secretary) speaking in 2001. Take care to watch her to the end. Her words may surprise you.

Henry Fitzgerald