Look Who’s Back: I Watched A Movie About Hitler And It Couldn’t Be More Timely - Cultural Daily (2024)

Andressa Andrade

  • August 24, 2017
  • Film

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It was Monday, August 07, when I told my father I had seen this movie about Adolf Hitler on Netflix and asked if he wanted to watch it with me. We agreed to watch it on Saturday night, after dinner. We had no idea of how good our timing was going to be.

Look Who’s Back (Er Ist Wieder Da), the film by German director David Wnendt, was released and distributed by Constantin Film in 2015. Based on the same-titled satirical novel by Timur Vermes, it imagines what would happen if the dictator woke up and found himself in contemporary Berlin. Hitler (Oliver Masucci) quickly gains media attention, as people take him for a particularly good impersonator, not knowing he is the real man. After some time on television, he begins to plan how to use his popularity to get back into politics.

The Führer’s reactions to the new world are hilarious. We get to see his amazement when facing new technologies and his outrage when he finds out what happened to the world politics after the War. Meanwhile, his weakest points — such as his poor artistic skills — are highlighted and explored. It is impossible not to laugh at him. But Masucci’s performance, though comical, is very convincing. He perfectly mimics the dictator’s speech pattern and mannerisms; the characterization is impressive.

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Yet what most deserves attention in the picture isn’t the actor’s brilliant impersonation, nor the jokes. What captured my attention were the unscripted scenes. During the filming, Masucci walked around several locations in Germany interacting with ordinary people while in character. The director told The Guardian that the idea “was to find out how people react to Hitler today, and to his ideas and to ask does he have a chance nowadays?”

The last question is what intrigues us. As the unscripted, documentary scenes appear in-between the scripted fictional ones, we reach the conclusion that unfortunately, the answer is “yes”. What we see are people walking up to “Hitler” and telling him they love him, saluting him, and even asking him to “bring back labor camps”. Masucci said he was shocked to see the positive reception the Führer got in the streets.

Imagine how scary it was to watch that, knowing what was going on in Charlottesville. One thing is to see those scenes and think of them as something distant, or as the products of the minds of isolated people. Another thing is to watch them knowing that there are neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and Klansmen marching across a city with guns and torches in their hands.

Critics of the movie argued that it was a selective portrayal of the German society. They accused the director of picking only the bad and most shocking scenes while failing to show how the majority of the German people welcomed thousands of refugees during that same year.

But what happened in Charlottesville is undeniable. There’s no space here to talk about “isolated cases”. That was not only a dozen people supporting Hitler’s ideals. We are talking hundreds. The numbers grow even bigger if we count the people who pledged their support online, after hearing about the rally.

It is even scarier because this happened in the USA, where hate speech is allowed to run free. In Germany, where the law prohibits Nazi symbols and references, people had to be in the presence of “Hitler himself” to bring their racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic opinions to light. In the USA, they know the Constitution’s First Amendment, in defense of freedom of speech, protects them and gives them a free pass to spread hate. If Germany seems like a place where Hitler could still have a chance nowadays, the USA is a much more propitious environment for his ideas to flourish.

The film’s main goal is to make people laugh. “But it should be the type of laugh that catches in your throat and you’re almost ashamed when you realize what you’re doing,” the director said in his interview with The Guardian. Well, the laughter is now bitterer than ever.

  • film, Germany, politics, Hitler, Look Who's Back

Andressa Andrade

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Andressa Andrade is a freelance writer whose mission is to create quality content for young audiences.

Look Who’s Back: I Watched A Movie About Hitler And It Couldn’t Be More Timely - Cultural Daily (2024)

FAQs

What is the movie Look Who's Back about? ›

What is the point of "Look Who's Back"? ›

The premise is Hitler has some how come through time and believes fate has brought him here to clean house (again). However, the film was actually using this metaphor to describe the coming of the next Führer if we're not careful. If we let down our guard we absolutely WILL see the rise of the next Adolf Hitler.

What movie was about the attempt on Hitler's life? ›

A dramatization of the July 20, 1944 assassination and political coup plot by desperate renegade German Army officers against Adolf Hitler during World War II.

What is the hidden message in the movie don t Look Up? ›

The climate crisis and the pandemic are the two most obvious metaphors for the film's comet. Through Don't Look Up, McKay points out that we live in a society that allows us to bypass scientific fact and ignore the threat of our own self-destruction for rich people's short-term gain.

What happened at the end of Look Who's Back? ›

Hitler allows Sawatzki to direct them to the rooftop, where Sawatzki shoots him off the side of the building. Hitler reappears behind him, unharmed, and the confrontation is revealed to be a film scene with an actor playing Sawatzki; the real Sawatzki had been committed to a mental hospital.

What is the point of look back in anger? ›

John Osborne's 1956 play Look Back in Anger initiated a movement focused on the "angry young man," a genre that tried to show the realism of the working class without romanticizing it. Jimmy Porter and his wife Alison live with their friend Cliff, and Jimmy and Alison do not have a healthy relationship.

What is the plot of the book look who's back? ›

Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. Things have changed - no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognises his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman. People certainly recognise him, albeit as a flawless impersonator who refuses to break character.

Who saved Hitler's life? ›

Chamberlain had little idea at that moment that he was being witness to a piece of history. The soldier in the painting was Henry Tandey, a British Private during the first World War who had Hitler's spared on September 28, 1918 in the fifth battle of Ypres, near the French village of Marcoing.

What movie is about moving Hitler's body? ›

Set during the waning days of World War II, Burial tells the fictional story of a small band of Russian soldiers tasked with delivering the crated remains of Hitler back to Stalin in Russia.

How accurate is Hitler's rise of evil? ›

Historically inaccurate but worth the watch. Whilst Hitler Rise of Evil may be historically inaccurate it is a riveting docudrama. Peter Stormare does a good job as Hitler but his portrayal is somewhat cartoon like. I don't blame him as I suppose they had to be careful as to not show Hitler in any sort of good light.

What is the movie Look Who's Back about Netflix? ›

Synopsis When Adolf Hitler reawakens at the site of his former bunker 70 years later, he's mistaken for a brilliant comedian and becomes a media phenomenon.

What happens in Look Who's Talking? ›

Mollie Jensen, an accountant living in New York City, becomes pregnant during an affair with Albert, a married client. The fetus, heard only by the audience, begins making commentary on his development.

Who is the character Peter based on in don't look up? ›

And in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Rylance confirmed that while he looked at CEOs like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos for inspiration, his character Peter Isherwell is based in no small part on SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

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