“DOWNFALL”, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 2004 telling of the final days of the Fuhrer-bunker as Russian forces approached through the rubble of Berlin, manifests his passion for telling it as it was, in that case the reminiscences of Hitler’s private secretary who survived.

On November 8, 1939, Hitler and his coterie of top Nazis were at the Munich Burgerbraukeller for the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler left 13 minutes earlier than scheduled. A quite large bomb that Elser (Christian Friedel) had painstakingly built under the building went off on time.

Most of “13 Minutes” is Hirschbiegel’s recreation of the Gestapo’s interrogation of Elser. Hitler went quite spare over the failure of torture and other imaginative brutalities to persuade Elser to name his co-conspirators. Which was hardly surprising. Elser built and installed the bomb without anybody else knowing.

Hirschbiegel’s film lacks joy, humour or compassion. The only credible description for it is “bleak”. Flashbacks to Elser’s family life and his affair with Elsa (Katharina Schuttler) cannot alleviate dreadful awareness of knowing how it’s going to end. Gestapo persuasion techniques and the execution method applied to conspirators against Hitler’s life appear in unallayed and appalling horror.

The world outside Germany knows little about Elser. That one man’s courage might easily be overlooked among the 50 million murdered by the Nazis. But it’s special for reasons that the film explains very well. History is immutable. Helped by films of this verity, memory endures.

At Palace Electric