This is not a film one "likes" in the ordinary sense that one might like, say "The Sound of Music." It is, however a film that could be admired for it's intention and for much of it's execution. I admired much of what the director was attempting, an unconventional look at Hitler's private life as an isolated, paranoid, lonely, often clueless individual who cannot connect with any kind of reality, but is still loved for himself by Eva.
Moloch is a curious, slow-moving construct, and is, in someways, about the disconnect between those who have power and those who depend upon them: the opening, featuring a nude Eva Braun dancing faun-like on some stone battlements in the fog, is odd and fascinating; what follows no less so, a sort of Fantasia On The Mad Dictator; the film is a curiosity.
Just it is difficult to nail down the character of W. C. Fields in a film, or Clark Gable, or Charlie Chaplin, it is always difficult to recreate the 20th Century's most notable villain, Adolph Hitler. Many from Alec Guinness and Anthony Hopkins to Richard Basehart have tried, but Bruno Ganz in Downfall offers the unimpeachable impersonation--but Downfall a different kind of film. Like the kinky film "Even Dwarfs Started Small," Moloch is an oddity, fascinating to some history or film fans, exasperating for most mainstream audiences.
Moloch is a curious, slow-moving construct, and is, in someways, about the disconnect between those who have power and those who depend upon them: the opening, featuring a nude Eva Braun dancing faun-like on some stone battlements in the fog, is odd and fascinating; what follows no less so, a sort of Fantasia On The Mad Dictator; the film is a curiosity.
Just it is difficult to nail down the character of W. C. Fields in a film, or Clark Gable, or Charlie Chaplin, it is always difficult to recreate the 20th Century's most notable villain, Adolph Hitler. Many from Alec Guinness and Anthony Hopkins to Richard Basehart have tried, but Bruno Ganz in Downfall offers the unimpeachable impersonation--but Downfall a different kind of film. Like the kinky film "Even Dwarfs Started Small," Moloch is an oddity, fascinating to some history or film fans, exasperating for most mainstream audiences.