Yes, it would be easy to criticize Molokh for being slow, and for having Russian actors mouthing German words that aren't natural to them, but I found this film to be fascinating through most of its length (and if Tarkovsky had made it, it would have been TWICE as long).
What we see is Hitler and his inner circle being jovial and vicious by turns, along with loopy discussions of racial characteristics (Czech men have droopy mustaches, indicating moral turpitude; the Finns are rendered mentally unfit owing to cold weather, etc.) There is a lot of backstabbing going on between Bormann and Goebbels; pity that Goering isn't in the film--we would have benefitted even more from his cynicism. All of this has the ring of truth--I recently read Speer's memoirs, Inside the Third Reich, which has detailed accounts of these lunch and dinner talk-fests.
Yelena Rufanova is not convincing as Eva Braun--too slavic looking--but Leonid Mozgovoy with his dumpy body is great as Hitler. The hypochondria, the refusal of middle-class pleasures--no slippers!--the insane political musings: it's all here. Leonid Sokol is Goebbels, absolutely. The rat face on a dwarf's body, the desperate ridicule of Bormann whom he knows is cutting him down: this is fine acting.
Sokurov adopts Leni Riefenstahl's style to tell a Wagnerian story of grandeur and collapse.
What we see is Hitler and his inner circle being jovial and vicious by turns, along with loopy discussions of racial characteristics (Czech men have droopy mustaches, indicating moral turpitude; the Finns are rendered mentally unfit owing to cold weather, etc.) There is a lot of backstabbing going on between Bormann and Goebbels; pity that Goering isn't in the film--we would have benefitted even more from his cynicism. All of this has the ring of truth--I recently read Speer's memoirs, Inside the Third Reich, which has detailed accounts of these lunch and dinner talk-fests.
Yelena Rufanova is not convincing as Eva Braun--too slavic looking--but Leonid Mozgovoy with his dumpy body is great as Hitler. The hypochondria, the refusal of middle-class pleasures--no slippers!--the insane political musings: it's all here. Leonid Sokol is Goebbels, absolutely. The rat face on a dwarf's body, the desperate ridicule of Bormann whom he knows is cutting him down: this is fine acting.
Sokurov adopts Leni Riefenstahl's style to tell a Wagnerian story of grandeur and collapse.