An enterprising YouTube user has posted a one-man reenactment of the famous Downfall bunker scene, using the actual lines from the movie to come up with one of the funniest parodies yet.
The dozens of Downfall parody videos that have turned up on YouTube constitute one of the most famous internet memes of all time, yet their very existence has come under threat since rights holder Constantin Film filed a copyright complaint last month. The videos are getting harder and harder to find, but a YouTube user by the name of Brandon Hardesty has come up with a twist that may give the old meme new legs.
Hardesty has basically turned the Downfall parody inside out: Instead of overlaying new subtitles on the scene, he’s reenacted it, entirely by himself, with the original dialog and subtitles intact. It’s a little weird, as you may have surmised, but also funny as hell in spots. For those of us who still haven’t gotten around to actually seeing the movie, it’s also a great way to finally find out what exactly the Fuhrer was screaming about.
For the record, Hardesty isn’t German; he’s a film student from Baltimore who did his best with the language. “This one was the absolute hardest video I’ve ever done,” he wrote on YouTube. “I know I kind of muddled the German language a little, but damn… it’s a hard language. It sounds like terrifying jibberish.”
Take that, Constantin Film!
