When “Downfall” first appeared in German and Austrian theaters, critics charged that it humanized Hitler beyond recognition and sapped the historical horror by turning Hitler and his henchmen into soap-operatic archetypes, transforming their undoing into an ordinary human tragedy.
In fact, the lesson of the parodies seems to be that “Downfall” was a closeted Hitler comedy. Having seen the spoofs before seeing the movie, I find it virtually impossible now to watch the film with a straight face. Ganz, the Swiss actor, takes his performance seriously. But something in the character name “Adolf Hitler” also seems to have liberated Ganz to play flat-out melodrama. His goofy, trembling, hopeless rage — in which is wedged a vituperative aria aimed at the traitors he perceives everywhere — recalls nothing so much as Jeremy Piven’s raving meltdowns as the jerk agent Ari on the HBO comedy “Entourage.”
