100 Jahre Adolf Hitler

One light, one day, one leader. Five men, four women, pulled out of the darkness by a hand-held spotlight. We see the last hour in the Führer's bunker as it really was. Shot in just under 16 hours in one take, in a bunker from the Second World War, 100 YEARS OF ADOLF HITLER shows incest and intrigue, noise and rioting – the last hour in the Führer's bunker as it really was. 100 YEARS ADOLF HITLER is Schlingensief's most important and most acclaimed film to date. It earns him the reputation among his advocates of being “the last German Heimatfilmer” (Georg Seeßlen), who stirs up turmoil by means of brushing people off in order to find harmony and ultimately a home. With the figure of Hitler, who from now on frequently “marches” into his work, Schlingensief puts his hand—that is, the camera, the handheld camera—into the most open of all German wounds. Here, Hitler is not a past personal catastrophe, but the grimace of the absurd human being himself, who sees himself as parentless, as a higher being, whose complete monstrosity, however, does not lead him to an institution, but to power, where he rages on. 100 YEARS OF ADOLF HITLER is the first part of Schlingensief's GERMANY TRILOGY, followed by THE GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1990) and TERROR 2000 (1992). 100 YEARS OF ADOLF HITLER premiered in 1989 at the International Forum of New Cinema at the Berlinale. There, the uncompromising production caused controversy and established Schlingensief's reputation as a provocateur of German auteur cinema.