Hitlers Hitparade (2005) User Reviews

the deadly beauty of propaganda

[dromasca · 9/10 · 15 October 2007]

The film is made out only of original films most of them from the propaganda and art films of the 3rd Reich period. There is no commentary, the whole soundtrack is only made of songs of the period. And yet it is one of the most powerful documentary about the horrors of the 3rd Reich that I have ever seen.

I lived through the communist era and I know very well how it worked. The propaganda machine and the prostituted art enrolled by the dictatorial regime built a parallel world, idealized and colorful, which allowed to most of the citizens to take refuge and helped believe whoever was ready to accept the lie that they were living in the best possible world.

Two aspects are chilling. The first is visible especially in the first half of the movie. The ideal world that the Nazi 'art' and propaganda was building had very similar sounds and images to the ideal world of the American cinema and pop art of the same period. After all, masses are what they are all over the world, and the same type of music, cartoons, beauty symbols, consumer objects applied. The second chilling aspect relates to the combination that the authors start to make in the second part of the movie between the ideal world and the horrors of the war and of the Holocaust. Images of false beauty and horror seem to integrate smoothly under the sound of the same sweetened music, as horror was banality and the Germany's march to perdition was paved by the beauty of the propaganda images.

A thrilling combination. Images and no words speak more and better in this documentary than any commentary in words could have done.

Unlike anything else I've ever seen

[runamokprods · 7/10 · 23 February 2012]

Strange, moving, effective documentary. There's no obvious narrative, just a combination of pop songs and music that were popular in Germany during Hitler's reign, with images from German films, propaganda shorts, and newsreel footage. The combination of the happy, upbeat music, with the images - first positive, happy films and propaganda, later footage of the camps and the horrors of the Holocaust was very powerful.

It was amazing how, in the early part, a smiling playful Hitler, and upbeat German nationalism could seem appealing on some gut level even though my brain knew how wrong that reaction was. And this coming from someone who is Jewish. It really demonstrated the amazing power of music and image to manipulate how we perceive.

And then, in the second half as the images turned ever darker, the sad ironies and counterpoints of the music to the images got ever more powerful, leaving me stunned and moved by the end, in a different way from other Holocaust related films.

My only complaint was that, for me it went on too long. The idea is so simple, and so quickly effective that a shorter running time might have only added to its impact. Of course, I see another reviewer felt it was too short, so obviously it's a personal reaction, not some objective truth.

Too short, that's the only mistake

[haddock · 10/10 · 30 January 2005]

This movie is a "collage" or a puzzle, made of professional and private movie bits, accompanied by original German songs of the late thirties and forties. The arrangement is very special: Every song has its own "chapter" with a title which captures a typical slogan or feeling of war times. The song is either contrasting the pictures or accompanying them, and the movie starts with showing the perfect beauty, strength and optimism of a "New Germany", but then also displays the schizoid character of the country at that time. You can hardly refuse the joyful musical scenes, the broadcasting spots, the cheerful announcements of successes, technical inventions and achievements, but in a very subtle way you suddenly see Jews, who are getting shaved their heads by Nazis, together with charming songs you are confronted with a dead soldier in close-ups and so on. In fact, after having seen this movie you cannot simply say that the times were only terrible: The horror came later, first it was wrapped up in shiny paper, made of style, elegance and music, made by people, who believed in arts and intelligence. Everyone who sees this movie - I can only recommend it - has to ask himself where he would have been at that time. A very hard question.