I woke up this morning and turned on Turner Classic Movies
I was assaulted with "Hitler Lives," a blunt and charmless piece of US propaganda stronger than any cup of coffee.
The premise here is that Americans should be wary of Germans- in spite of the fact that Allied Forces have triumphed and Hitler has died. Yes, it seems every German is still considered a threat and potential Nazi at heart, so it's best to play it safe and just hate the lot of them. Dead bodies and wounded children are flashed on screen, along with hung corpses and mass graves... all haunting images of WWII, but a rather manipulative way of angering an audience and praising the military machine.
The greatest fault of this short film, however, is its objectiveness- or lack thereof. Our emotional narrator throws statistics to the wind and arrives at most of his conclusions by answering his own questions. ("Is every German a Nazi? No, but the bad outweigh the good!") These arbitrary statements give the movie a broad, reactionary feel, much too irresponsible for a topic of such importance. If the subject matter wasn't so horrifying the film might play as a comedy... as is it's just a horrifying reminder of Hitler and his army.
The premise here is that Americans should be wary of Germans- in spite of the fact that Allied Forces have triumphed and Hitler has died. Yes, it seems every German is still considered a threat and potential Nazi at heart, so it's best to play it safe and just hate the lot of them. Dead bodies and wounded children are flashed on screen, along with hung corpses and mass graves... all haunting images of WWII, but a rather manipulative way of angering an audience and praising the military machine.
The greatest fault of this short film, however, is its objectiveness- or lack thereof. Our emotional narrator throws statistics to the wind and arrives at most of his conclusions by answering his own questions. ("Is every German a Nazi? No, but the bad outweigh the good!") These arbitrary statements give the movie a broad, reactionary feel, much too irresponsible for a topic of such importance. If the subject matter wasn't so horrifying the film might play as a comedy... as is it's just a horrifying reminder of Hitler and his army.