Arnold
CibbuanoHitler: Rise of Evil
October 16th 2006 06:25
Hitler: Rise of Evil (2003)
This mini-series went to air a few years ago on Australian TV and was hyped up to the max. Unfortunately, I bought into this hype and was very excited when the first half came on the telly. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Such was the level of my disappointment in this mini-series that I want to make it known what this could of been, and - unfortunately - what it was.
First of all, with a name like 'Hitler: Rise of Evil', it was obvious that this wasn't going to detail the niceties of everyone's favourite instigator of the Holocaust. Having said that though, I feel there are sufficient flaws to blast this to bits all the same. For anyone who missed this glossy, two-part series, it covered the earlier years of Hitler's life - following his service in WW1 through to his rise to political power in the mid 1930s. Alongside this story, we also follow one journalist's attempts to prevent 'the rise of evil'.
Okay, I'll start with the good points. It looks good - the production values are top notch. Robert Carlyle is excellent with the material he's been given. It's nice to see Peter O'Toole out and about as well. Um... and that's pretty much all I can say that’s good. Now, on to the bad points.
What a sensational thinly-veiled piece of Jewish propaganda! There is no subtlety to be had here... the series glosses over and outright ignores certain facts to present a thoroughly biased and trite puppet show of smiling goons and breathless heroes. In refusing to be in any way even-handed in it's portrayal of history the series reveals itself to be as bad as what it preaches against, giving an audience of the new millennium a brutally and shamelessly selective 'account' of the 'monster' known as Adolf Hitler.
I'm not saying that he was a nice guy and an all-round fair chap, but the characters of Hitler and the people shown here who believed in him are portrayed as simply ridiculous… Hitler is shown to be quite unintelligent – a tap for regurgitated and misunderstood ideals. At one point he even spits food everywhere like some kind of spastic loon.
The production's refusal to admit that the Third Reich could have possessed any semblance of rationality or intelligence is insulting, insidious and dangerous in it's ignorance of human nature. Hitler and his goons are made out to be little more than idiot madmen… a direct insult to the countries he went on to conquer and the people he duped. You know what they say about the qualities of one’s enemies… if Hitler was as second-rate as he’s made out here, than the Allies he found himself up against must have been downright imbecilic. It’s also insulting to the viewers… the audience is hit over the head, time and time again, by so-called 'facts'. I can't say enough about how one-sided and stupid it all is.
Then there's the 'hero' of the minni-series; a journalist called Fritz (Modine) who will stop at nothing in his doomed quest to reveal the 'true' nature of Hitler to the German public. What a goddamn fucking joke. Despite my doubts regarding the existence of such a person (and the script's pathetically under-developed theme of 'evil triumphs when good men do nothing'), I can't help but sneer nonetheless at the need to include some sort of traditional protagonist for the 'audience to cheer on' when the whole thing is meant to be about Hitler. Who cares about this guy? Then there's the Jewish club owner and his wife - and the point of their characters was what exactly? I'm guessing nothing more than to give the director an excuse to conjure up some cliched comparisons between political machination and cabaret satire. Yawn.
There's not much else for me to say on the matter... I want to warn people off from buying it if they missed it's 'acclaimed' debut on television. It looks nice, but it's really quite shit. It's embarrassingly dated anti-Nazi propaganda. I thought the passing of history was meant to give us perspective; the ability to analyse, reason and learn from our mistakes? Someone ought to have told that to the makers of 'Hitler: Rise of Evil'. What a disappointment.
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Comment by Keira
Keira's Blog
Good point.
If Hitler was a "spastic loon" why did it take so long to get rid of him? How could he have done what he did if he was a spastic loon?
Thats all I have to say.
Comment by Luke
Old Movies
Cane Toad Warrior
Did you see this show? It was on telly in 2003.