Apocalypse: Hitler Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		2.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

Apocalypse: Hitler Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 7, 2012

When confronted with evil on the scale of Adolph Hitler, can a “mere” biography ever hope to explain its subject? Reciting a series of facts and figures about a character may give a timeline and even some historical context, but it probably can’t ever hope to really explicate why. And that huge, looming question hanging over Apocalypse: Hitler is most likely the most glaring thing that prevents this documentary from ever really providing much more than a surface deep look at the most villainous man of the twentieth century, and perhaps of all time. As with Apocalypse: World War II, this sibling documentary also utilizes a glut of colorized archival footage, something which supposedly will make the content somehow more “accessible” to modern day audiences, but which often does nothing other than call attention to itself (especially when the “colorizers” totally miss elements like individual faces in a crowd, leaving them standing out in good old black and white like a monochromatic sore thumb). It’s especially odd in the case of Apocalypse: Hitler as the documentary also makes copious use of real color footage, including some of Eva Braun’s famous home movies, which look brilliantly vivid and lush when thrust up against the often pallid, lackluster colorized elements.

Apocalypse: Hitler was evidently culled from a French television series called Apocalypse: The Rise of Hitler, done by the same people who made Apocalypse: World War II. This is a briefer and more generalist outing, split into two parts. The first section gives us Hitler’s biography from birth to just before he seized power in Germany. The second part documents his reign as Führer, including his disastrous reign as instigator of “The Final Solution”. The best part of this documentary is its footage—colorized or not—some of which this particular World War II fanatic had never seen before. That only partially compensates, however, for a piece that only occasionally offers new or interesting information.

There’s some probably unintentional humor with regard to this release’s cover. The producing entity has the perhaps unfortunately moniker of Vaudeville, and the cover photo offers old Adolph not exactly “stylin’” in a pair of shorts that aren’t quite Lederhosen (no suspenders), but which also aren’t exactly the sort of thing that shouts “world domination”. One might be excused for thinking this is some sort of Mel Brooks “Springtime for Hitler” parody. But the documentary is obviously sober minded and occasionally it even offers a glint or two of compelling information.

Though real Hitler scholars probably will already know this, I for one was rather surprised for example to hear about a niece he had who claimed she had had an illicit relationship with Hitler, including some hints of sexual perversions. This young woman ended up committing suicide, and in fact Eva Braun was chosen by a friend of Hitler because she resembled the deceased relative. This was evidently a major scandal at the time and threatened to derail Hitler’s climb to power. In fact what becomes maddeningly apparent throughout both sections of this documentary is just how close Hitler came to being a spectacular failure at several points throughout his life. His younger years were marked by one misstep after another, and really that trend continued even in his early political career.

Hitler had a bizarre “lucky” streak (with major quote marks around that word) once he did become Führer, and for several years he seemed to be in a sweet spot (so to speak) where he could do no wrong. But even throughout this period, his obvious mental instability shines through frighteningly clear, probably now more due to hindsight than was obvious at the time, as some of the documentary’s clips of his daffy gesticulating and almost manic speaking style help to make clear.

Still, Apocalypse: Hitler is simply too generalized and surface deep to ever really provide any salient answers. This is not to detract from the fact that there may not be really good answers for evil this degenerate, but the documentary simply plays like a laundry list of “and then this happened” narration, albeit narration accompanied by some often really interesting (and sometimes incredibly gruesome) archival footage.

Apocalypse: Hitler Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Apocalypse: Hitler is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Entertainment One with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. This two part documentary is built out of archival footage including small format film, still photographs, and the like. Some of these elements are in decent enough shape, but they've been so haphazardly colorized that it's almost comical at times. In any given frame there will be weird greens and browns kind of pasted willy-nilly on various surfaces, while large swaths of the same frame remain completely in black and white. Crowd scenes are especially comical, as either the colorizing team ran out of money or patience, as colorized faces cohabitate with black and white visages. It's completely ludicrous and makes some of this obviously very serious (and in the case of the Holocaust, troubling) footage unintentionally comic. Putting the colorization issue aside (which frankly is near impossible to do), quite a bit of this documentary looks pretty ragged in any case. The best looking elements here by far are the still photographs, which obviously aren't in motion and remain more stable looking as a result. While some of the better archival elements have been gussied up with scratch removal, the bulk of them are still pretty rough looking, with an overall fuzziness and lack of any significant detail. Some of this footage would have intrinsic historical value, but the colorizing has depleted most if not all of that worth.

Apocalypse: Hitler Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Much better—if no less artificial than the colorization—is Apocalypse: Hitler's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. The Making Of featurette included on this Blu-ray as a supplement shows some of the surround elements being configured, and there's no denying that there has been a lot of good surround activity added to this documentary. It's probably most noticeable in the second half, which deals more exclusively with the war years, but even in the opening half, there's really good use of crowd noises and the like which significantly opens up the sound field. Fidelity is excellent, though it's to be expected that actual "original soundtrack" recordings of Hitler often pop and crackle and display other age related damage. There's quite wide dynamic range when taking the entire documentary as a whole, with occasional bursts of LFE as well during some of the battle segments.

Apocalypse: Hitler Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making of Featurette (1080i; 47:54) is another at times overly self-conscious (and self-congratulatory) enterprise, kind of like the similar featurette that accompanied Apocalypse: World War II. That said, there are some interesting segments here, especially with regard to some of the technical aspects, notably the surround sound mixing.

Apocalypse: Hitler Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Apocalypse: Hitler has some fascinating (and at time extremely unsettling) footage, a lot of which I personally had never seen before. And there are occasional facts and tidbits bandied about that may surprise some armchair historians. But this documentary is too over generalized and eager to move from one chronological moment to the next to ever really delve into its villainous subject as deeply as some might want. What really sinks this enterprise, though, is the shoddy colorizing. Colorizing in and of itself is not as hideous as it used to be, and there's a certain restraint in the use of an understated palette here that actually looks okay, if never great. But why colorize only part of any given frame? It's just downright ridiculous and makes some of this otherwise riveting footage unintentionally funny. There's no dearth of excellent World War II documentaries out there, many of which manage to reveal at least as much about Hitler as this one does.