Sunday, January 17, 2010

My Fuhrer: The Truly Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler (GERMAN) DVD

DVD Review by Kam Williams

Headline: Hitler Takes It on the Chin in Comedy on DVD

Although bodaciously billed as a tale dispensing God’s honest truth about Adolf Hitler, this flick is actually more akin to an episode of Hogan Heroes than any World War II documentary you might find on the History Channel. And it’s almost as funny as that classic TV sitcom, provided you don’t mind laughing out loud at the Holocaust.
The story is set in December of 1944, at a time when the nefarious Nazi leaders are ostensibly aware that their cause is all but lost with their army in retreat and being defeated on practically every battlefront. So, according to this fictionalized account of historical events, the country’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) hatches a desperate plan to save the regime.
The idea is to have the Fuhrer (Helge Schneider) reignite the sagging spirits of the German people and to mobilize the masses by delivering an impassioned propaganda speech on New Year’s Day. The trouble is that January 1st is less than a week away and Hitler is an emotional basket case, being sick and depressed, and unwilling to appear in public.
So, the Nazis’ last hope rests with finding Adolf Grunbaum (Ulrich Muhe), a Jew who has long since been deported to a concentration camp despite having served as Hitler’s acting coach at the start of the Fuhrer’s political career. Grunbaum agrees to help on the condition that his wife (Adriana Altaras) and four children are spared the ovens.
Under the watchful eyes of Hitler’s Henchmen Goebbels, Himmler (Ulrich Noethen), Bormann (Udo Kroschwald) and Speer (Stefan Kurt) via a one-way mirror, Grunbaum proceeds to whip his former student back into shape, literally, employing a combination of psychotherapy and a form of tough love involving increasingly humiliating forms of corporal punishment.
Thus unfolds My Fuhrer: The Truly Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler, a hilarious pack of lies written and directed by Dani Levy which by the closing credits suggest that Hitler was everything from a Jew to sexually-frustrated to a drug addict to an alcoholic who preferred blondes and who turned people into Soylent Green-like sausages. The cleverest Holocaust humor since Mel Brooks’ “Springtime for Hitler” skit in The Producers.

Excellent (3.5 stars)
Unrated
In German, Hebrew and Yiddish with subtitles.
Running time: 89 minutes
Studio: First Run Features

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great satire.