Frau Junge's story goes to back when she was in her early twenties. Like most of us, she had a story. But unlike many, the moment she met Hitler, history would entirely shape it.
The cinematic or technical merits of this visual testimony don't seem relevant to me. If it is more about an old lady trying to recall distance events or if it fails to provide a "shock of the new" angle of Hitler and the Nazis isn't crucial to me, either.
It's the title.
One thing I have learned about films is the defining and revealing nature of their titles, those who aim beyond being a mere synthesis of their plot to highlight the tensions, the atmosphere, the struggle that is carried throughout the film. But the titles I value the most are those which can have a strong metaphoric reading as the one I felt so present after watching this.
"Hitler's secretary," is an intimate account of one of history's "inmates," a young witness of our precarious existence. For me, this is an invaluable testimony of a woman who did what millions of others did for a number of years: they merely took dictation from a dictator. They reproduced without questioning, their hands triggered by a blind faith in their source.
For those who still think that only monsters can do monstrous things, welcome to planet Earth.
For those who deeply believe that only a simplistic, Nazy propaganda profile of Hitler can be an effective antidote for humans like him, bear in mind that, as someone wrote in another review, evil is never pure.
And that's the scary part: that we all are disturbingly human.
The cinematic or technical merits of this visual testimony don't seem relevant to me. If it is more about an old lady trying to recall distance events or if it fails to provide a "shock of the new" angle of Hitler and the Nazis isn't crucial to me, either.
It's the title.
One thing I have learned about films is the defining and revealing nature of their titles, those who aim beyond being a mere synthesis of their plot to highlight the tensions, the atmosphere, the struggle that is carried throughout the film. But the titles I value the most are those which can have a strong metaphoric reading as the one I felt so present after watching this.
"Hitler's secretary," is an intimate account of one of history's "inmates," a young witness of our precarious existence. For me, this is an invaluable testimony of a woman who did what millions of others did for a number of years: they merely took dictation from a dictator. They reproduced without questioning, their hands triggered by a blind faith in their source.
For those who still think that only monsters can do monstrous things, welcome to planet Earth.
For those who deeply believe that only a simplistic, Nazy propaganda profile of Hitler can be an effective antidote for humans like him, bear in mind that, as someone wrote in another review, evil is never pure.
And that's the scary part: that we all are disturbingly human.