Filmed in barely 16 hours in a World War II bunker, 100 YEARS OF ADOLF HITLER presents incest and intrigue, noise and mayhem – the last hour in the Fuehrer's bunker as it really was.

100 YEARS OF ADOLF HITLER was Schlingensief's most important and respected film up until then. It gave him the reputation, among his advocates, as "the last German Heimatfilm director" (Georg Seeßlen), who, by means of offensiveness, kindled chaos in order to find harmony and, in the end, homeland. With the Hitler figure, who henceforth frequently 'invades' his work, Schlingensief puts his hand – that is, the camera, the hand-held camera – in the most gaping of all German wounds. Here, Hitler is not a personnel disaster of the past but rather the countenance of an absurd human that sees himself as without parents, as a higher being, whose abject monstrousness does not lead to the nuthouse but, instead, to power – whence it rages.

100 YEARS ADOLF HITLER is the first part of Schlingensief's GERMANY TRILOGY. It was followed by THE GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE [a.k.a. BLACKEST HEART] (1990) and TERROR 2000 (1992).

Reviews and commentary:

Schlingensief has already made numerous films that hit the pain threshold of the performers and viewers. The banality of evil; here, it becomes the event. (P. W. Jansen, epd film)

There are still some films that take you out of the safe zone; you, and the deceptive appearance of aesthetic and political, intimate and historical, certainties. (tip Berlin)

My favourites this time were: firstly, Simon Robertshaw; secondly, Peter Greenaway; and finally, Christoph Schlingensief. Perhaps Schlingensief can be described as the last survivor, or better still, as the only legitimate heir, to underground film. His latest work, 100 YEARS OF ADOLF HITLER, is a "dirty and trashy film" that makes Kenneth Anger's SCORPIO RISING look like a nice and proper commercial for motorcycle accessories. Schlingensief's work, filmed in one day and in dirty B&W, stands by itself amidst the colourful images on 16mm or U matic. The renunciation of the universally popular reflective contemplation about filmmaking; the gross violation of the most elementary standards of cinematography, lighting, and sound technology; the exalted overacting of the performers – everything about this film induces the atmosphere of the danger and trauma which, possibly, encompasses only German memories. Those who, like me, went to the "Made in Scotland" video programme after this experience couldn't believe they were still at the same festival. Those mostly short video pieces were indecisive, old-fashioned and also fixated on the old fundamental questions of experimental cinema. Those kinds of disappointments, however, are not prepared for the spectators by the festival; the cause lies with the spectators themselves. Because Osnabrück just keeps on going, its impassive eye cast upon everything that flickers and flackers. (Thomas Kemp, Festivalbericht 2. Europäisches Medienkunst-Festival in Osnabrück, European Photography, 01/1990)

Schlingensief is in pursuit of the disparity "through which the past can first be perceived as past, and through which modern historical consciousness is constituted as a consciousness of difference" (Rainer Rother, Mercury 483, May 1989). He quite frankly films nothing but the present (which, like his film as well as our pre-film everyday life is, in fact, punctuated by Nazi emblems, uniforms and thoughts) as an expression of the historical process itself. What he films are contemporary fractures and debris – inner like outer – illuminated throughout the entire film by a single dim light, not bright enough to illuminate everything, and yet bright enough to recognize that characters are being lived out in this bunker. Here and now, a contemporary delusion is given expression: it is not a question of understanding Adolf Hitler or understanding Joseph Goebbels or understanding Hermann Göring, the film makes no attempt at being a "historical psychogram". A similar attitude towards this aspect of history is familiar through the films of Daniele Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. The resolute differentness of their entire work, however, is found in his "dependency" on literary and musical preparatory works as well as in the perfected theatrical mode of the thespian activity. In 1987, in a published excerpt from his unpublished play "Der Zuschauer als Film" (The Spectator as Film), Schlingensief wrote about his work: "I looked for locations that were unbearable, that would have made every normal person seek the distance. I planned the shooting schedule in such a way that it could never be done, unless the team and performers were willing to spend 10 days without sleep. And I wrote scripts that you couldn't act out, let alone understand." (Rolf Aurich, Der Trümmerfilm eines Egomanen,filmwärts Nr, 7. 1987)

Filmgalerie 451

Production Country

Germany (DE)

Production Period

1988/1989

Production Year

1989

color

b/w

Aspect Ratio

1:1,66

Duration

Medium-Length Film (31 to 60 Min.)

Type

Feature Film

Genre

Heimatfilm, Drama, Anti-war / War Film

Topic

World War II, Film History, National Socialism

Scope of Rights

Nichtexklusive nichtkommerzielle öffentliche Aufführung (nonexclusive, noncommercial public screening),Keine TV-Rechte (no TV rights)

Licence Period

31.05.2025

Permanently Restricted Areas

Germany (DE), Austria (AT), Switzerland (CH)

Available Media

DVD

Original Version

German (de)

DVD

Subtitles

English (en), Danish (da), French (fr), Italian (it), Dutch (nl), Norwegian (no), Polish (pl), Portuguese (Brazil) (pt), Swedish (sv), Spanish (es)

• 100 Jahre Adolf Hitler. Die letzte Stunde im Führerbunker
• Christoph Schlingensief