Downfall

No one needs to introduce Adolf Hitler, Germany’s World War II Fuhrer and founder of the National Socialist Party which headed Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Countless movies about the war were produced ever since the late 1940s up to nowadays, the legacy doesn’t seem to be stopping. Just think about the number of box office movies you saw about WWII: Enemy at The Gates, Shindler’s List, Life is Beautiful, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line…

Americans, Russians, British or French were the heroes, fighting the common enemy: the Nazis. Rare are the movies where you could watch a version of the war from the opposite perspective, from Hitler’s own perspective, an issue movie director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, was able to achieve majestically.

Critics viewed “Der Untergang” (German original title of the movie) as an attempt to humanize Adolf Hitler, a person who has mood swings in the movie when he learns about high ranking officers’ treasons and direct orders that were not carried out. Regardless of the inevitable defeat, he remains Fuhrer until he shoots himself and orders his soldiers to burns his corpse. The story is based on testimonies of people who actually served under Hitler – which include his personal secretary, Traudl Junge – and didn’t unleash the secrets that tied them with the Fuhrer until recently (when they reached the last couple of years of their life). With the release of this movie, the last political taboo in Germany falls.

The plot: Downfall relates the last 10 days of Hitler’s life, retreated in a claustrophobic bunker in Berlin with his loyal Generals, his mistress Eva Braun, Joseph Goebbels – chief of Propaganda – and the personnel. He faces his final defeat against the Russian Army marching fiercely in direction of the city. The situation seems so chaotic, the enemy is getting closer and there doesn’t seem to be a way out of it this time. Human madness reaches its apogee with the Fuhrer executing people runners, Magda Goebbels killing her children for them not to live in a country where National Socialism has collapsed, Eva Braun partying and “having a walk” under Russian artillery. In the middle of it all, Traudle Junge is living a dream which doesn’t seem to be stopping…

The cast:

Adolf Hitler: Bruno Ganz, played in similar historical box office movies such as The Manchurian Candidate and Luther

Traudl Junge: Alexandra Maria Lara, played in several German movies and TV series.

The movie received Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, it’s a must-see. Europeans have once again proved themselves as being able to match American movies especially when it comes to narrating their own history.

The Russian Mafia

I was truly amazed by how good this book was. When I first got it, I though I would be reading a documentary with nothing but dates and names. You do find dates and names, but the interesting part in the book is the analysis behind all those events, based on the own experience of the author and on hundreds of press articles.

“The Russian Mafia” is the only book by Federico Varese, a scholar at Oxford University, currently holding the chair of the Criminology department. Believing his words, it took several years of work and multiple trips to Russia. Although the issue is covered in a general perspective at some point, Varese emphasized on a specific region: Perm. He personally interviewed people directly involved in the process of the Russian mafia: criminals, company managers, security officers, journalists and so on.

Perm is one of the ten most populated areas in Russia and most importantly the refuge of dozens of criminals and gangsters. As explained, the rate of crime is related to the location of nearby prisons. During the Soviet era, prisoners were sent to low populated regions in the country (ideal for setting up a prison); once the sentence served, the prisoner was not allowed to move back to major cities so he usually lived in a nearby place. Consequently, towns were established by ex-prisoners; in our case towns located in the Perm region.

The collapse of the Soviet Union caused thousands of K.G.B. agents, government officers, sportsmen to be out of job. Simultaneously, demand for security increased dramatically since capitalism was just overtaking communism. Thus, security agencies (lots of which are considered mafia) were constituted to serve the most prominent political and economical agents (oligarchs plays a big part) but also the less influential people in the country.

When talking about mafia, we insinuate organized crime. If three robbers organize a robbery and succeed, is this organized crime? The author argues that the notion of monopoly comes in hand. A group of criminals controlling for example the distribution of drugs in a specific region are considered to be part of organized crime. Thus, they will not allow anyone else to sell drugs on their territory and will respond by violent means if someone does. Here comes the second characteristic: being in hold of a physical force and using it when needed.

The organization and the origins of the mafia constitute another part of the book. A particular aspect I found very interesting is related to the ancestor of the Russian mafia, the vory-v-zakone, a community constituted by criminals respecting certain laws related to how one should live his life and defining what he should (eg. Live by stealing and gambling) and should not do (eg. Never execute an order given by a governmental authority). You also find a comparison with other worldwide criminal organization such as the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the American Mafia and the Hong Kong Triads.

In a nut shell, this book is a must-read. You will definitely not get bored reading – it doesn’t exceed 200 pages. I even read some parts 5 or 6 times in order to understand the smallest details. Too bad there isn’t any other crime-related book by the author.

Las Vegas Getaway

You may have noticed that the look of the page changed recently, this was part of a series of modifications and upgrades:

• Upgraded WordPress to the latest, which seems pretty cool after you try a trick or two on it.
• Changed the theme.

Now off to Vegas!

GoDaddy Coupon

It’s been a while since I blogged… Maybe I’ll get back to it soon.

For the moment, if you’re a GoDaddy customer, make sure you use this coupon when you register or renew a domain name. You get the domain for $6.95 instead of $8.95. I just used it, enjoy!

Coupon Code: cjc695dom

Never Tell Me Never

This movie, based on a true story, was only produced for TV. Luckily, it was broadcasted last week; I had never heard of the cast, the director or the title of the movie before. But still, after watching it, I must recognize that it’s a nice movie, nothing special about the realization but I greatly admire the story-line, the interpretation and the numerous country side views of Australia!

“Never Tell Me Never” is based on an autobiographical book by the same name written by Janine Shepherd, a woman whose life falls upside down in one day following a severe accident. Two thumbs up for Claudia Karvan in her role of Janine Shepherd; Claudia is an achieved Australian actress who contributed to dozens of movies and TV series in her country. She also plays a small role in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

The plot: After several months of hard-work, Janine succeeds in joining the Australian Cross-Country Skiing Team and is on her way to grab a medal at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. During her extensive training, she is hit by a car and severely injured. According to doctors, her chances of surviving are slight; however, she survives and stands partially paralyzed in a hospital where she knows that she’ll never be able to ski again. Some doctors even doubt her chances of walking again or ever having children. Janine wants to get back on her feet and refuses the facts, just as she did before the accident, never acknowledging to give-up in a skiing competition, up to the stage of stubbornness and against the advice of her coach. Thus, she decides not to use her wheel chair anymore. In the process of rehabilitation, she meets wonderful people that help her in her recovery; people like Uncle Darryl, a nurse at the hospital, and a doctor that contributed to the rescue operation, Dr. Adrian Cohen, not to forget the constant support of her parents. Weeks after she’s out of the hospital, she launches a new challenge on herself: learning to fly light planes…

The story of Janine Shepherd is a source as inspiration as I see it. Her achievements as a skiing champion and later on as a distinguished flying pilot and public speaker proved that armed with strong-will, someone can achieve anything. Today, Janine lives in Sydney, married and mother of three children – doctors were wrong here too!

Unless you live in Australia, you’ll have a hard time finding a TV station broadcasting the movie. So you should think about getting the DVD or else buying the book somewhere online.