Hacker Cinema
Look Who's Back
Er ist wieder da
2015 · Film · 116 min
Directed by David Wnendt
When Adolf Hitler reawakens at the site of his former bunker in present-day Berlin, he is mistaken for a comedian and quickly becomes a media phenomenon.
4 positive3 neutralfrom 7 commenters
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7 comments on Hacker News
> Are so many so naive?
No, it's the clueless general public that is criminally naive and fails to recognize the revival of fascism in real time under their own noses.
It's something straight out of that 2015 German movie, "Er ist wieder da" ("Look Who's Back").
Same giggles, same reactions, same gaslighting of those who see where it's heading, same final effect.
> I truly never could comprehend how Hitler got to power.
There are two great movies about this. 'The Third Wave' and 'Er ist wieder da'.
Of course we have reality now and we see how ostensibly smart people are lured in by soundbites and simple solutions to complicated problems. The dumb ones I can't really blame but the smart ones are a much bigger problem. They twist and turn like eels on a hook to try to justify that which can't be justified at all, not even in the abstract. And yet, they persist. And in doing so they normalize the language and the attitude that goes with that. It's like watching something viral replicate.
> Now we’re seeing it in action, and it scares me.
Yes, it scares me too. It scares me in ways that I did not think I could be scared. It scares me to the point that I wonder if we're not already past the point of no return, that this - like WWII - has to burn out before things can get better again. Assuming there will be anything left. Too many forces are working really hard to destabilize the world that we've come to take for granted.
What I have realized though is that at the head of these movements are a relatively small number of people, each with their own agenda. And you have to wonder: if it hadn't been Hitler, who would have come to power there? None of the cast that we know had the power of oration that Hitler had, his ability to make people believe that he had the answers, when he clearly did not. The dissatisfaction of the German populace with the outcome of WWI and the finger pointing are very much reminiscent of what is happening right now in many places all over the world. The exact same patterns. And instead of radio (which never lost its power) we now have the TV and the internet to push our buttons and make us act against our own interests.
'May you live in interesting times' always was a curse, not a blessing.
I don't even think you need to dress that person nicely. The film "Look who's back" had an actor in the role of Adolf Hitler talk to random people in the street in unscripted sequences. He readily pulled them over to his side by relating to their everyday problems.
As crazy as the premise is of Hitler getting inexplicable transplanted into the 21st century, the film manages to demonstrate the appeal of these dangerous populists.
Also this reminds me to recommend Look Who's Back https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Who%27s_Back_(film)
which took an idea that could have been trite and boring but made it really creepy. I think because it had that whole boiling the frog thing down - it paced the move from absurd to horrible just right.
Great post, many good examples, but the elephant in the room is "Yes yes, I know people still do some of the above things." and the question is how much will remain being done.
The babyboomers are on their way out. They're the people born right after WWII and they're in their 50/60/70s. They were born in a world where TV at home was a novelty. They witnessed the smartphone revolution in their late adulthood.
When people who grow up in our current society, with the changes as you put, become adult without the old reference then we will see how important something like pen and pencil remain. And how usable will it be? For example, when I had to scribble down notes the other day, my handwriting was even more abysmal than it used to be because of a lack of practice.
The movie Er Ist Wieder Da (which I saw recently on Netflix) where Hitler returns in Germany in the 21st century and gets confronted with a changed Germany also articulates these changes.
> To invoke Goodwin's Law, perhaps we should be more sympathetic to the viewpoints of Nazis? How about white supremacists?
There's a movie on Netflix at the moment, a German movie called "Er Ist Wieder Da" ("look who's back") about Hitler returning in modern-day Germany. It's part movie, part documentary - the actor playing Hitler travels around the country and talks to people about politics and the like, and finds there's a lot of people agreeing with some of the standpoints.
The nazis crossed a huge number of lines and had some batshit people at the helm, but I'm sure you could find some points that a lot of people would agree with even in these days. Same with white supremacists, some of which have toned down their racism and become more politically correct.
"Look Who's Back", mentioned in the article, isn't just a book. It's a movie. The trailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtW1Lq5c04E
The part where a young Goth woman shows Hitler how to use Google is very funny.