In Heal Hitler! Bavarian wag Herbert Achternbusch points his tale at "those who dismiss National Socialism as a mere hiccup in German history." "Hitler was no great man," Achternbusch muses in writing of this, his most provocative film, "he was only as good as his people, who were rotten. But he was a frustrated artist, and had reserves of energy he didn't know what to do with.... It remains to be asked what it was that stopped Hitler from becoming an artist, it remains to be learned what would have cured him, what made him so mad, for the healing of Hitler-I must be this brazen-would also have been the healing of the Germans and the whole world." Syberberg, he's not, but in being twice as outrageous, Achternbusch is no less sincere in his attempt to shake up a complacent attitude that relegates German history to the past. Moreover, he has the audacity to propose this "no-budget" film, blown up from Super-8 to 35mm, as a model for new young filmmakers in Germany. German film industry, heal thyself! Achternbusch is himself a man of prodigious creative energy, a kind of underground Charlie Chaplin who has invented a supremely absurd other-self in pseudo-autobiographical satires (Bye Bye Bavaria, The Last Hole, etc.). His hilarious cabaret style is spiced with vulgarity and a distinctly Bavarian humor. As with all his films, on Heal Hitler! he is writer, director and star.