Der letzte Akt / The Last Ten Days

G. W. Pabst: Der letzte Akt / The Last Ten Days (AT 1955). Albin Skoda (Adolf Hitler), Lotte Tobisch (Eva Braun).

Hitlerin viimeiset päivät / Hitlers sista dagar.
    AT 1955. PC: Cosmopol-Filmproduktion (Vienna). EX: Carl Szokoll. P: Ludwig Polsterer.
    D: G. W. Pabst. SC: Fritz Habeck – based on a treatment by Erich Maria Remarque – based on an outline by Leo Lania – based on the works of Michael A. Musmano, including Ten Days to Die. DP: Günther Anders. PD: Werner Schliching, Otto Pischinger, Wolf Witzemann.
    Filmed at Atelier Wien-Sievering and Baden bei Wien.
    Starring Albin Skoda (Adolf Hitler), Oskar Werner (Captain Wüst), Willy Krause (Goebbels).
    Originally 114', this one 104'.
    A vintage print with Finnish / Swedish subtitles.
    A press screening at Orion, Helsinki, 28 April 2005.

A daring film by Pabst, breaking the German Bilderverbot concerning Hitler, filming in Vienna the taboo subject that was tackled in Germany only 60 years after the fact in Der Untergang. The latter film is superior, but this one is also quite interesting and well acted.

Visually, it is extremely dark, and the Nazi leaders are almost shadows lurking in the bunker. Hitler is portrayed more like a madman than in the Bruno Ganz interpretation. Intriguingly, Pabst wanted Werner Krauss to portray Hitler, presumably because of his ability to portray evil genius and demonic fascination. Albin Skoda is very good, yet somewhere there is a fleeting aspect of something that brings to mind Mike Myers as Dr. Evil.

Unspeakable evil is almost impossible to portray in realistic terms; Caligari and Mabuse were close to the target, as Pabst seems to have realized with his Werner Krauss idea. But the banality of evil that Pabst and Der Untergang highlight is also worth dramatizing. Not one of Pabst's masterpieces, yet a honourable quality production worth seeing. ***