100 Years of Adolf Hitler

In direct and provocative contrast to the idyllic and uplifting story of Wings of Desire, Christoph Schlingensief created an absurd farce about the derangement, decay and depravity of the climax of the Thousand-Year Reich or rather the final moments in the Führer's bunker. His film thus wallows in exalted madness, the absence of logic and hedonistic brutality. 100 Years of Adolf Hitler was the first in Schlingensief’s series of confrontational carnival rides in the context of which it represents the director's most accessible (though not necessarily best) work, as it is the least burdened by the phenomena of the time or rather it cites them directly, whereas his later films, particularly the next two parts of his German trilogy, are heavily burdened by the contemporary context and today come across as being very cryptic. (01/02/2022)