Reflection #004

Look Who's Back (2015)

I liked Look Who’s Back. Not because it is a great movie exactly. The CGI effects are cheesy, the acting is mostly unremarkable, and I can’t really comment on the dialogue because I don’t know much German and the subtitles I used were a little off. But the concept works, and the execution works. It implicates the viewer in a way that is difficult to ignore. It is a comedy that eventually makes the viewer notice they have been watching Hitler the same way the people in the film do: as a spectacle.

The film moves through a few different phases. Hitler wakes up in 2014 in a park where his Fuhrerbunker used to be. We get a voiceover narration from Hitler that is kind of reflecting on his experience in the moment. He wanders around for a while trying to figure out what’s going on and accosts some people at Brandenburg Gate, eventually getting maced and taken in by a newspaper stand owner who looks very much like William H. Macy.

At this point, my willingness to suspend disbelief was challenged: Surely if a guy dressed as Hitler showed up at Brandenburg Gate and started yelling at people, the police would get involved. However, the whole point of the movie is that people dismiss Hitler as a comedian and don’t take him seriously, so I let it slide.

We are introduced to a freelance filmmaker who has recently been fired by his boss. The filmmaker, named Sawatzki, discovers Hitler and decides he can use him. He says to himself, “All I need is money” and begins a YouTube series where he and Hitler drive around the countryside interviewing regular Germans. Though he is always honest about who he is and what he wants to do, the people who lend support to Hitler throughout the film don’t really believe he is Hitler or care about his ideas. They help him because he is useful to them.

These are real interviews, by the way, and something that occurs throughout the film. It’s not actors refusing to take Hitler seriously, it’s real people. The Borat-style interactions Hitler has with everyday people grow more and more disturbing as the film progresses. They smile and wave at him, get their picture taken for him, cheer for him, give him hugs and tell him they love him like he’s Mickey Mouse. At several points, people Sieg Heil him. A few people flip him off or brandish weapons at him. At one point, a man approaches him and tells him it’s wrong to do what he’s doing and he should quit his job.

Occasionally the camera settles on an elderly German in the distance, looking on with an expression of worry and disapproval. At one point, Hitler encourages some young soccer fans to beat up an anti-Nazi protestor and tie him up. The creeping sense of dread I felt became despair as I watched these scenes unfold.

Eventually Hitler is assaulted by neo-Nazis who accuse him of betraying Germany and wakes up in a hospital with flowers and get well soon cards. The head executive of the TV channel, who supports him and put him on the air, is there. Immediately the phrase, “I was cured, alright,” sprang into my mind. The parallels between this and A Clockwork Orange become hard to miss (Wendy Carlos’ arrangement of “Funeral of Queen Mary” plays over the ending of the film). In both films, the villain is not “cured” of villainy, merely given a new form of expression.

Hitler writes a book and gets a movie deal for his story, and eventually the filmmaker tracks him down and forces him at gun point onto the roof. Before he is shot, Hitler says, “you never asked why people follow me. They are like me. They have the same values.” Boom, he shoots Hitler, Hitler falls off the roof, then reappears behind the guy saying “You can’t get rid of me. I’m part of you. Part of all of you.” Someone yells, “schnitt” and the camera pans out to reveal we are watching the filming of Hitler’s movie.

At this point, a realization began to dawn on me: I’ve been doing the same thing as the people in the film. Instead of seeing the film as horrific from the outset, I accepted its frame as a dark comedy. I saw the initial scenes of Hitler bumbling around and getting acquainted with the modern world as humorous, but by then, the film had made its accusation clear. I had not been outside the joke, watching other people fail to recognize fascism. I had accepted the joke too. I had watched Hitler bumble through modern Germany and let the film be funny before it forced me to be horrified. I was just like those German citizens who circled around and laughed or even clapped when Hitler was drawing caricatures for tourists in Berlin, or drinking beers in Bavaria.

In the end, Hitler gets into his Mercedes-Benz 770k alongside the movie executive (who looks very much like Eva Braun at this point). We are shown more footage of regular people interacting with Hitler, and the sheer number of people cheering for him and saluting him caused tears to well up in my eyes as the film pulled out into footage of far-right rallies and politicians such as Marine Le Pen. Finally, the credits rolled and Lead Belly’s “Mr. Hitler” began to play, which caused me to sob as he sang, “We’re gonna tear Hitler down some day.”