In the spring of 1942, a few months before the notorious Battle of Stalingrad, Adolf Hitler (Leonid Mozgovoy) retires to his secluded Berghof Retreat, on a remote hilltop of the Bavarian Alps, near Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, to unite with his long-time female companion Eva Braun (Yelena Rufanova).

At the residence, Braun spends her spare time with trivial pursuits such as whimsically dancing in the nude, humming to military-style marching band music, and rummaging through Hitler's personal belongings.

Towards the end of Hitler's visit, Braun reminds him that no one can escape death or is infallible in an attempt to expose a hidden weakness within him as he embarks with his motorcade to continue Nazi Germany's military campaign.

Among reviews, Derek Elley of Variety noted, "There are no new revelations in this portrayal of an arrogant madman and his sycophants, and though impressive at first, Sokurov's glacial treatment, with its deliberately soft-focus look, pales after a while.

"[4] Likewise, Jason Anderson of Eye Weekly gave the film a five-star rating, commenting, "Though he hopes to extract the man from the mythology, he doesn't merely humanize a figure in any conventional sense, as Downfall did to Hitler with troubling results.