Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary review

In Max, Hitler's early days were viewed from the perspective of a fictional Jewish art dealer. But there's nothing invented about Blind Spot, in which Adolf's private secretary tells her story for the first and last time.

Speaking shortly before her death in February 2002, 81-year-old Traudl Junge gives a compelling insight into life in the Führer's lair. The Hitler she describes is not a monster, but a charming, dog-devoted eccentric who forbade flowers because "he hated having dead things around". Only when the war turned against him did the fanatic emerge.

Directors André Heller and Othmar Schmiderer keep the camera trained on Junge throughout, eschewing stylistic frills (no archive film or voiceover). Visually, it's a hard slog - you don't so much watch the film as read the subtitles. But Blind Spot remains an absorbing and powerful documentary, even if you do leave feeling Junge's tearful contrition came 60 years too late.