Adolf Hitler, Man do I hate him and any American in their right mind would hate him too. He was mean, nasty, a man of violence and racism, tried to wipe out the Jewish race and probably every other race epically if they didn't have blond hair and blue eyes and if the world weren't able to defeat this mad man we would probably lose our freedom.
However, as time went on and even at the time, most of the world (Epically we Americans) hated him so much that we've turned this sick racist bastard into a complete laughing stock and idiot with our parodies and jokes on him. Don't get me wrong, we need to take this part of history seriously, epically when learning about how he killed the Jews because lets be honest, there's no way you can make that funny! Even though there's nothing funny about Hitler either, we needed to laugh to remind us of how stupid he is and how demented his ideas are, rather then crying about it. So as time goes on, shows, films and comedic performers and writers have been mocking him for years and the jokes never get old and people are still creating new ones. Perhaps Hitler and Nazi parodies have been around even before the war including a Three Stooges Parody made the same year before the film I'm about to review film realised, however, the best known parody and comedic actor who really stepped through the ranks in mocking Hitler even before we Americans even got into the war was...
The film is just basically a lampoon on Hitler and how he treated the Jews. Chaplin plays the Dictator Adenoid Hynkel who's the films villain and a Jewish Barber who's the films main character. Chaplin is best known as the silent character but in this film (Even though he's probably talked in other films) he can act with dialogue. When he's the Jewish Barber (Who by the way isn't his Tramp character) he's both funny and dramatic with lots of emotion behind it. When he's Hynkel, he's so funny, over the top and idiotic that to me he is the perfect mockery on Hitler. Where I surrender my emotions and get chills from Chaplin is the touching speech he gives at the end, it's truly one of the best acted and well written speeches I've ever heard in film. The supporting cast such as Paulette Goddard as the love interest, Reginald Gardiner as the barber's friend, Henry Daniell as a parody of Joseph Goebbels, Billy Gilbert as a parody of Hermann Goring and Jack Oakie as a parody of Benito Mussolini, are all funny and great as their characters.
Out of all Hitler parody's, this one is really ballsy epically for it's time. It was made when we were in peace with Nazi Germany, it mocks Hitler with a passion and shows how demented he is and it satirized life in the Jewish Ghetto. What makes the film truly work is Chaplin knows how to balance the comedy and the drama. He knows when a scene should be funny, he knows when a scene should be sad, he knows what to satire and how to satire it, that's what makes the whole film and satire work. The score itself even has the same balance of drama and comedy as the film intends to be. What I also love is the films style of different comedic elements. It has satire on politics, it has a mockementary look, it has the feel and look of his silent films in a few scenes, it has some really cartoonish scenes in the film and all of them work and never feel out of place!
This is not only what I like to call the ultimate mockery on Hitler but it's also one of Chaplin's cleverest and funniest comedies of all time.
RATING 5/5
No comments:
Post a Comment