Downfall

Recently I watched Downfall, the harrowing and disturbing account of the last twelve days of the Nazi regime.  Set in Hitler's bunker in Berlin, and told mostly partially from the perspective of the Nazi ruler's young secretary, Traudl Junge,  the film features an amazing performance by Bruno Ganz as Hitler.  Ganz brings a stirring intensity to the role as well as an amazing range of emotions, capturing the megalomaniac's mannerisms - ticks, stoop, gait, nervous habits - in all their inglorious glory.  I highly recommend the film, and I think, unfortunately, that more people know it from Youtube parodies than from viewing the actual film.

I recommend Downfall because it is great drama and somehow pertinent.  The phrase "History repeats itself" may be hackneyed, but it always seems to ring true.  As I was watching the film, I kept thinking of another megalomaniac, Moammar Khaddafi, holed up in a bunker, spouting lies about a lost cause, a lost war, a lost regime, to any true believers who might listen.  History repeats itself, sorry.

Impossible Me.  Implausible you.

Imagine that standards could erode away like a sand dune in a sirocco.  (The plastic perfect mentality of our barbie-doll lives could dissolve, and the multitude of means and standards made up by Madison Avenue gurus, their denizens, their true believers, and their financial dervishes, could be aired out like so much dirty laundry. The rules - rules of thumb, rules of engagement, rules to rule by -  each and every one of them designed to make a more perfect world, and a more complacent citizenry - a citizenry sedated by principle and belief and easy-to-understand mythology - could evaporate).  Imagine that none of the so-called truths were held true.  Imagine people thinking for themselves, always thinking, not just saying.  People on a collision course with the established network of truths, and half-truths and quarter-truths.  People leaving the message behind.  People finding a new language.  Old slogans, old saws, and half-assed aphorisms could be left out to dry.  We don't have to say what is said before:  There are atheists in fox holes.  There are other places like home.  There is rest for the weary.  When you look at the forest, you see the trees.  There are men living as islands.  Many bad deeds go unpunished.  The meek don't inherit much. Inspiration is a lot more than perspiration.

Imagine that you can just make this shit up.