The Architecture of Doom
Directed by Peter Cohen.
Sweden, 1989, 35mm, 119 min.
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Sweden, 1989, 35mm, 119 min.
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Peter Cohen’s critically acclaimed documentary explores the inner workings of the Third Reich and illuminates Nazi aesthetics in the visual arts, architecture, and popular culture. Cohen argues that the difficulty in defining Nazism in traditional political terms is due to an overlooked but tremendously powerful motivation beyond the scope of politics: the force of an extreme aesthetics of beauty. Building on this Nazi cult of the beautiful, The Architecture of Doom explores the eccentric cultural ambitions of Hitler’s Third Reich.