Accolades for Hirschbiegel's Hitler movie

Fr, 07.01.2005, Pascal Blum

The Bavarian Film Prize, headlines in French newspapers and interest in America: The last days of Hitler's bunker continue to get attention.

German audiences of Bavarian television, radio station Bayern 3 and the newspaper Münchner Abendzeitung have voted the story of a humanized Hitler in «The Downfall» as the best movie of 2004. Right-wing CDU politician Edmund Stoiber, of all people, will be handing over the Bavarian Audience Prize to the director at the award ceremony on January 14. After the movie's premiere in France earlier this week, the newspapers «Le Figaro», «Libération» and «France-Soir» all put the Hitler vehicle with Swiss actor Bruno Ganz on their front pages. The reviews were mixed, from «very preachy» to «as trivial as an Indiana Jones movie». There is much buzz in the US as well, with the movie coming out on February 18. Weblogs are a-chatter and this week Yahoo ran the unfortunate title: «German Moviegoers Hail Hitler Picture», referring to the Bavarian Film Prize.