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By Natalie Ilsley
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A new German film titled Look Who's Back and released on Thursday features the return of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler to modern-day Germany, 70 years after his demise.
The satirical German film imagines Hitler waking up from a coma on the site of his former bunker in Berlin. Now a residential area, he finds himself in unfamiliar territory while he wanders around the multicultural city. Mistaken for a Hitler impersonator, he decides to pursue a career as a standup comedian in the hope of eventually entering politics.
In a new trailer for the film, which mixes scripted scenes with off-the-cuff, real-life encounters with the public, Hitler (played by actor Oliver Masucci) encounters farm animals, accidentally electrocutes himself on a fence in a field, poses for pictures with firemen and speaks to neo-Nazis.
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The film is based on German author Timur Vermes's 2012 satire of the same name, which has sold over a million copies in Germany. The English version was translated by Jamie Bulloch in 2014.
Director David Wnendt told The Guardian newspaper that he hopes the film will make people laugh. "Germans should be able to laugh at Hitler, rather than viewing him as a monster [which] relieves him of responsibility for his deeds and diverts attention from his guilt for the Holocaust...But it should be the type of laugh that catches in your throat and you're almost ashamed when you realise what you're doing."
But Wnendt also told the newspaper that he was concerned by the public's positive reaction to a wandering Hitler, as people took pictures with Masucci, hugged him and even kissed him.
"Our idea was to find out how people react to Hitler today, and to his ideas and to ask, does he have a chance nowadays?" said Wnendt. He answered that, yes, unfortunately a modern-day Hitler would stand a chance.
The film opens Thursday, October 8, in Germany.
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