Look Who's Back

Hitler wakes up on a Berlin lot in 2014. Nobody believes him, everyone assumes he is an extremely committed impersonator, and that is exactly why he becomes a television star. It is adapted from Timur Vermes's 2012 novel. The real trick is not the scripted material but the hidden camera passages between it: Oliver Masucci goes out in costume and talks to actual Germans. Around 300 hours of footage were shot, driven by a simple question about how people would react to Hitler. Masucci gained 26 kilos for the part, worked on the voice, and spent hours a day in prosthetics. In Germany it hit number one at the box office in its third week and it grossed 25.5 million dollars worldwide. The German Film and Media Evaluation body rated it particularly valuable. Critics divided, and the argument came down to one question: does the satire actually critique its subject, or quietly normalise him. Who it is for: viewers who like uncomfortable satire and the hidden camera format. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot accept the subject being played for laughs. The last section drops the jokes and turns into a warning, but it is a long road to that turn.