Movie: Der Untergang ("Downfall")

TItle: Der Untergang
iMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/
Type: Foreign; Historical Drama
Rating: 8.4/10 (iMDB) **** (4/4)

There are an endless series of war movies filling the shelves, but nothing focusing on the last days of Hitler's life, spent in a bunker in Berlin under attack. This movie is interesting for the insights it provides into the character and personalities of the people involved, from the slavish obedience of the generals who served him, to the revealing chats of Hitler himself over tea. For example, in one scene, Hitler says to someone, "I am proud to say that I have never shown one shred of mercy or compassion to anyone, in my entire life..." Where did he get this ideal? Was it some odd reflection of Nietzsche? Ah yes, the teutonic spartan...

The movie doesn't focus on the horrors of anti-semitism, death camps, or the bleak commonplace deaths of the battle field. In Hitler's bunker, people come and go on business. Some living in the bunker with Hitler plan their escape; others dream about their eventual victory. One secretary takes Hitler's final Statement.

It's an important story, I think. We have judged these people, but the movie portrays their own judgement of themselves. It's a study of madness from the viewpoint of the mad themselves. If you have any interest in the nature of evil and of the human psyche, then this film will appeal. It goes beyond mere entertainment: it is something truly worth watching, and I recommend it.

Introduction to Saloniers

Hello and welcome to Saloniers, the official blog for the irc undernet channel; #salon. I am freelance and I am the administrator for this blog. This is an introduction to the purpose of this blog, but first let me talk a little about #salon. Over the years, a group of chatters who have frequented the #philosophy and #philosophical channels on undernet have felt the need for a separate channel to call home. Some attempts have been made to start new philosophy channels or somewhere for us all to meet for a chat and exchange of thought. These attempts had mixed success. In the latter half of last year we had discussed the matter once more, suggesting that a channel solely for philosophy may not be the best route to take and partially due to stepterix's dissatisfaction with #philosophy, which he was a member and op for many years, #salon was finally born (the name, I believe, suggested by JohnGuru). The concept this time was a channel for the discussion of cultural matters, like that of the french salons of 17th and 18th centuries. The channel has endured quite well and looks set to continue as such.

Not long after the channel was established I came up with the idea of having a blog we could all contribute to. Most of the membership have their own blogs and they are relevant to the channels philosophy of cultural discourse. The purpose of this blog was to share our thoughts and contributions in one place, from our respective blogs or especially for this blog space alone. JohnGuru has already commented on what the channel and the idea of culture mean to him in the previous blog entry.

I would like to thank JohnGuru, Niniane and stepterix for their support of this idea and hope we will have a successful blogging future ahead of us here at Saloniers. I also hope that we will attract more like-minds to the channel and consequently to contribute to this blog itself.