Moloch (Russian: Молох) is a 1999 Russian-German historical/biographical film in German language directed by Alexander Sokurov and written by Yuri Arabov and Marina Koreneva.
The film portrays Nazi Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler (Leonid Mozgovoy) living his life in an unassuming manner with his partner Eva Braun (Elena Rufanova) during an abrupt stay at the Kehlsteinhaus (also known as Eagle's Nest) cottage atop a mountain above Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps in the spring of 1942.
The film is the first in a three-part Thematic Series by Sokurov, followed by Taurus in 2001 about Vladimir Lenin and The Sun in 2005 about Emperor Hirohito.
Moloch provides examples of the following tropes:
- Affectionate Nickname: Eva nicknames Hitler "Adi".
- Attention Whore: Eva tells Hitler to his face that outside meetings and rousing speeches to giant crowds, he's just a "corpse" when he's alone.
- Ban on Politics: Martin Bormann forbids everyone to talk politics or Eastern Front at the dinner.
- Dancing with Myself: After her nude gymnastics outside, Eva puts clothes on and dances to the sound of a military march record in a meeting room inside the Kehlsteinhaus.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Hitler has a portrait of his mother Klara on the wall in his bedroom.
- Home Nudist: The film opens on Eva walking, hugging a stone pillar and doing gymnastics in the nude in the outside stone corridor and balcony of the Kehlsteinhaus during a rainfall.
- Hypochondria: Hitler thinks he's on the verge of dying of cancer or other sicknesses he enumerates. Eva tells him to stop whining and even names that "hypochondria". Hitler indeed had hypochondria and a fear of dying of cancer (the latter because his beloved mother Klara died of it).
- Leg Focus: Eva also makes her bare legs move to the record of a military march while sitting in a chair in the meeting room after dancing alone, looking at some of Hitler's paintings in a book and removing her shoes.
- Ms. Fanservice: The film opens on Eva Braun doing gymnastics in the nude, and later she has her bare legs "dance" in the air to a military march.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: The voice actor for Hitler didn't bother trying to reproduce his notorious Austro-Bavarian accent.
- The Peeping Tom: A Gebirgsjäger (German mountain corps soldier) looks at Eva with binoculars at the beginning while she's doing gymnastics outside the Kehlsteinhaus in her birthday suit. She sees him and waves hello at him.
- Record Needle Scratch: The record Eva listens to while looking at some of Hitler's paintings has a scratch at one point, although it doesn't underline anything particular other than being a technology of the time period.
- Same Language Dub: The actors are all Russians, and they were all voiced over by German actors (the film was released in Russia and everywhere else in that form, with local subtitles).
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Martin Bormann and Joseph Goebbels are quite vitriolic to each other.
- Standard Snippet: The film's opening credits are set to the beginning of "Siegfried's Funeral March" from Richard Wagner's Götterdämmerung. Wagner was Hitler's favorite composer and, in his megalomaniac fashion, Götterdämmerung was the final opera to be performed in Berlin in the weeks before the Red Army besieged and took the city in spring 1945.
