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Mar. 28th, 2005 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
molly_oI can't believe I haven't posted since Wednesday ...
Thursday must have passed uneventfully, because I can't remember anything about it.
Friday, I had to get up early (noooooo!) for a doctor's appointment (at which I learned my ovaries are follicularly endowed, which is apparently good news) and that evening saw Downfall.
It's taken me a couple days to process that movie. It's a German film about the last ten days in Hitler's bunker. It's received some criticism for "humanizing" Hitler, and it's true that the first five minutes of the film depict him as a sort of kindly uncle, which was weird and uncomfortable. But the film made it abundantly clear he was a crazy man, full of rage and hate, who orchestrated the deaths of milions. And as long as we're clear on that up front, I think it's important to consider his personal charisma. Because there are a lot of crazy, hateful folks out there, and not too many of them manage to get a whole country full of people to follow them. It's so hard to fathom how the people around Hitler could feel such *loyalty* to him, but they did -- and we need to understand how that happened.
All the actors did an amazing job, Bruno Ganz in particular. The movie has a fairly large cast of characters but manages to juggle all their stories very effectively. It's actually close to three hours long, but I never once wondered when it would be over. And CGU -- who's a real history buff and has read half a dozen books on this particular subject -- found it extremely accurate.
I did have a couple reservations about the film. It really pushes the "Hitler didn't care about the German people" angle, which may well be true but is far from the worst of his sins. At one point in the film they showed scenes of the cvilians in Berlin, battered and underfed, and I felt a rush of sympathy, until I recalled the people held in concentration camps, by comparison with whom the residents of Berlin were robust and rosy-cheeked.
Deep stuff aside, I was particularly struck by Goebbels and his wife -- they were CRAZY; they murdered their own children rather than allow them to "live in a world without National Socialism" -- and also by how the military leadership was haunted by the memory of the end of World War I, determined to fight to the bitter end rather than surrender to the Allies.
Saturday was crazy busy: yoga with P., coffee with my SF book group in the late afternoon, and then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kassrachel's birthday dinner at Meskerem. I was a bit nervous beforehand -- I wasn't sure who I would know, and though I'd seen kassrachel at cons, I'd never spoken with her, so I expected to feel like a crasher -- but as it turns out, I had a *wonderful* time. Everyone was charming and funny and smart and *interesting*, and after dinner we stopped for ice cream and then repaired to Smara's for post-prandial beverages and more conversation (including a game of oracle, which I'd never played before but quite enjoyed).
Sunday, a bunch of folks came over to play games; there were three kids under three, so the only game we played was "keep the babies from crying." We played it well, though, and it was a fun afternoon. And then last night, CGU convinced me to watch Deadwood, and I remembered why I love that show. I defy anyone to find me another program that uses the word "taint" (referring to a precise location of the male anatomy) in a sentence, nevermind a show that has you cheering when a character passes a kidney stone.
Thursday must have passed uneventfully, because I can't remember anything about it.
Friday, I had to get up early (noooooo!) for a doctor's appointment (at which I learned my ovaries are follicularly endowed, which is apparently good news) and that evening saw Downfall.
It's taken me a couple days to process that movie. It's a German film about the last ten days in Hitler's bunker. It's received some criticism for "humanizing" Hitler, and it's true that the first five minutes of the film depict him as a sort of kindly uncle, which was weird and uncomfortable. But the film made it abundantly clear he was a crazy man, full of rage and hate, who orchestrated the deaths of milions. And as long as we're clear on that up front, I think it's important to consider his personal charisma. Because there are a lot of crazy, hateful folks out there, and not too many of them manage to get a whole country full of people to follow them. It's so hard to fathom how the people around Hitler could feel such *loyalty* to him, but they did -- and we need to understand how that happened.
All the actors did an amazing job, Bruno Ganz in particular. The movie has a fairly large cast of characters but manages to juggle all their stories very effectively. It's actually close to three hours long, but I never once wondered when it would be over. And CGU -- who's a real history buff and has read half a dozen books on this particular subject -- found it extremely accurate.
I did have a couple reservations about the film. It really pushes the "Hitler didn't care about the German people" angle, which may well be true but is far from the worst of his sins. At one point in the film they showed scenes of the cvilians in Berlin, battered and underfed, and I felt a rush of sympathy, until I recalled the people held in concentration camps, by comparison with whom the residents of Berlin were robust and rosy-cheeked.
Deep stuff aside, I was particularly struck by Goebbels and his wife -- they were CRAZY; they murdered their own children rather than allow them to "live in a world without National Socialism" -- and also by how the military leadership was haunted by the memory of the end of World War I, determined to fight to the bitter end rather than surrender to the Allies.
Saturday was crazy busy: yoga with P., coffee with my SF book group in the late afternoon, and then
kassrachel's birthday dinner at Meskerem. I was a bit nervous beforehand -- I wasn't sure who I would know, and though I'd seen kassrachel at cons, I'd never spoken with her, so I expected to feel like a crasher -- but as it turns out, I had a *wonderful* time. Everyone was charming and funny and smart and *interesting*, and after dinner we stopped for ice cream and then repaired to Smara's for post-prandial beverages and more conversation (including a game of oracle, which I'd never played before but quite enjoyed).Sunday, a bunch of folks came over to play games; there were three kids under three, so the only game we played was "keep the babies from crying." We played it well, though, and it was a fun afternoon. And then last night, CGU convinced me to watch Deadwood, and I remembered why I love that show. I defy anyone to find me another program that uses the word "taint" (referring to a precise location of the male anatomy) in a sentence, nevermind a show that has you cheering when a character passes a kidney stone.