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Moloch Director: Aleksandr Sokurov Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Widescreen, Dolby Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 108 minutes Studio: Koch Lorber Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2005-03-08 Buy from Amazon

From Description In an ominous fortress perched high above the clouds, everything seems in order for a reposing 24 hours. It is the spring of 1942 and Eva Braun (Elena Rufanova) is the only voice that dares to contradict the Fuhrer. She gets caught up in the complexities of a man incapable of human intimacy, making her as volcanic as her beloved Hitler. (Leonid Mosgovoi)

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.5 "The Banality and Foolishness of Evil" Can any history or biography give us a true sense of what Hitler was like as human being (assuming he was ever deserving of that appelation) when unoccupied by war and conquest?. There have been many recent film attempts at this and one cannot imagine that any of them, or for that matter any future film could possibly capture the truth behind the evil that was the man. Moloch, directed by the Russian Aleksandr Sokurov, is but one colored view of the private Hitler as he cavorts for a couple days at his Bavarian mountaintop fortress with his companion Eva Braun and house guests Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Goebbels, (the former the Nazi propaganda minister) and Nazi party idelogist Martin Boormann. Hitler is seen and heard waxing inane, falling asleep during lunch, defecating on a mountaintop, daydreaming, ranting and making love. Very little of the film concerns Hitler's thoughts on anything particularly serious and perhaps that may be precisely the point: very little of importance occupied Der Fuhrer's gray matter other than excuses to reign tyrannical both personally (as displayed in every character's nervous bootlicking) and politically. Like a man on vacation, Hitler is free to think about everything and nothing and cannot seem to choose but for the latter, his few pronouncements and non sequiturs failing to impress even those closest to him, though of course, meeting with their fawning approval. At the film's conclusion, Eva Braun manages to get in a few words to him as he is about to return to the real world of war, his demeanor suddenly focused. Commenting on a statement he had made to Goebbels about conquering death, she reminds him that even he cannot do that. This echoes prior scenes where Hitler, sarcastically criticizes his carnivorous guests preference for 'corpse soup' (he was of course a vegetarian). Despite this portrayal of a life affirming Hitler seemingly so obsessed with life and nature, it is clear that nothing that transpired among the group during those few days in thought or deed was particularly life enhancing. The film is fascinating portrayal that goes beyond evil as banal: it derides Hitler as but a clown and nothing more. One is left to wonder had anything in Hitler's ideology been of substance would he have prevailed. "Bore-loch" This movie is as boring as anything I've ever seen. When the highlights are a middle aged woman prancing about nude and the Fuhrer dropping his drawers to defecate--what can you say? I thought "Downfall" was a great movie--this is no Downfall--it's boring, trite and irritating. Perhaps if you didn't already know that Hitler was rabidly anti smoking, a hypochondriac and a fanatical vegetarian--you might find a few interesting moments--but most of this trivial information is pretty much general knowledge. All in all--this movie is a total waste! The acting is generally ok--it's the material--though I also have to say that Goebbels looked like a mad munchkin "An interesting insight into what the private Hitler may have been!" I say "may have been", since few have testified or remain to attest to Hitler's more private moments, and many accounts by those already gone, and of those very few remaining, have been questioned as to their validity due to personal conflicts and complicity in Hitler's tyranny. So, there is little real insight into Hitler's intentionally protected (by him and his cronies on the pain of death) private moments. A good example of this is Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's trusted friend and film maker ("Triumph of the Will", among other works) who's recent passing left us wondering how much of her memoirs were real and how much were excuses, coverup, and disassociation on her part from her role in Hitler's madness. Riefenstahl went to her grave playing down her role and covering up her contibutions to the Nazis, but that is another study in itself. Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary, also deceased relatively recently , also spent much of her final days distancing herself from Hitler and there is a good deal of evidence that her revelations regarding Hitler's personna were more self serving than of any new historical significance. "The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl", and "Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary", are two films on these two important characters in Hitler's regime. (I have reviewed both, if interested) Point is, there is little to chose from or use as factual reference for a movie such as this. That doesn't make this movie irrelevant, however. Back to specifics. It is "Twilight Zone" eerie; it uses a mad sort of genius approach to the subject; it is strangely frightening in it's subject's insanity; and it is highly questionable as to it's entertainment value. In fact, there is little, if anything, entertaining about it and I am sure that is the way the Russian producers intended it to be. That said, there are parts where humor is obvious even if not intended. The actor portraying Joseph Goebbels was difficult not to laugh at--he was so miscast and his character was played down as a baffoon, which in reality he unfortunately was not. Goebbels was one of Hitler's key, coldblooded, fanatic henchmen in the day-to-day reality and the horrors of the Third Reich and he was devoid of anything approaching humor in his every endeavor. He and his wife murdered their chidren to join Hitler in death in the final days--he was a Hitler zealot. He did more to "sell" Hitler to Germany than, perhaps, any other single or group of individuals. I have to wonder if this portrayal was a sarcastic and intentional characterization or simply the result of poor casting and a weak storyline? You decide! The Russian hatred of the Germans and Nazis in particular has abated very little over the past 60 years. Other actors and their characters are treated less lightly and are more believable; Frau Goebbels and Eva Braun for example. The Russian actors, who did a comendable job portraying them, are unknown--just names, to me anyway. I watched an eerily similar, yet decidedly different, treatment of the look into Hitler's psyche in "The Empty Mirror", which I also reviewed, and came away from both sessions with a genuinely strange and sick feeling. Neither movie will be a regularly repeated viewing experience for me. Once or twice a lifetime is most sufficient--it's doubtful you will forget the experience or need much in the way of a refresher, particularily if you are as old as dirt like I am. They are both very intense in the portrayal of the madness of that era and, as other reviewers noted, seem to depict what hell or insanity are really like. Having said that, I must add that they are necessary viewing experiences for anyone interested in the history of Hitler, the Nazis and that period of the 20th Century. Both movies intended and succeeded to show Hitler at his perverted, insane worst. Though documented evidence maybe scarce and specific scenes maybe artificially manufactured for sake of the film, there is no doubt the basic truth regarding Hitler is there. Both films were recognized by the Cannes Film Festival, but neither made nor will ever make the best seller list. Interesting viewing? Oh yes, in an insane sort of way. Valuable to the historian? Maybe. Necessary or even pleasant viewing experiences for everyone? Not a chance. A must for the historian, amature or professional? Absolutely! Both films indeed succeeded in showing Hitler for the maniac he was and hopefully contribute to the overall understanding of how and why he happened. A must for the serious Third Reich video collection. "Very good recreation of history" This movie (which received fairly good reviews at Cannes in 1999) capture a brief space time spent during the penultimate days of World War II by Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, Josef Goebbels, Martin Boorman etc., in Berchtesgaden, the mountain retreat used by the Nazi elite. The film I saw was in Russian with French sub-titles, and portrays the dyamics between Hitler and his immediates. The film is visually impressive, the acting believable, the relationship between Hitler and Eva Braun almost sympathetic (despite a natural reluctance to use that word in the context of such characters). "Moloch" would be found slow-moving by many, but others would regard it as simply focusing on characters history still finds controversial and fascinating.One piece of dialogue has Hitler seemingly unaware of the Holocaust, which his anti-semitic policies initiated but whose mechanics remain unknown to him-at least so implies the character in this film.