Werk
Ohne Auteur (2018): Written and directed by Florian Henckel
von Donnersmarck. Starring: Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, Paula Beer, Oliver
Masucci, Saskia Rosendahl. Running Time: 188 minutes.
Rating:
3.5/4
It’s
now been over a decade since von Donnersmarck’s landmark film, Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives of Others) captivated
audiences worldwide, landed an Oscar, and became one of the definitive films to
date chronicling life under the repressive East German government of the Cold
War. Now he is back with another massive
historical drama (we agree to pretend that The
Tourist never happened), one that seeks to find the connective threads
between 30 years of German history, set through the prism of a single artist struggling
to find his vision of the world.
This
artist is Kurt Barnert, loosely based on the real-life story of Gerhard Richter. Growing up in Sachsony prior to the war, he
is treated to regular trips to the art museums of Dresden by his Aunt Elisabeth
to support his already clear artistic gifts.
The clouds of war and National Socialism soon come knocking at his
family’s door, though; Elisabeth, diagnosed with schizophrenia, is caught up in
the dragnet of the Holocaust as part of a concerted effort to institutionalize,
sterilize, and eventually murder those with social or neurological
disorders. As someone with an with Down’s
Syndrome and an autistic brother, there will likely be no other moment in a
film this year that will impact me as profoundly as the scene where Elisabeth is
led along with a group of other patients to the gas chambers.
The
murders in Dresden are carried out under the management, and fiercely stern
gaze, of Professor Carl Seeband (he INSISTS on the Professor title), a
gynecologist and an obsessively self-centered villain of a man, played to a T by
Sebastian Koch. At first he appears to
be a diehard Nazi ideologue, but we are soon shown that his loyalty to any
group or idea extends only insofar as it offers him an ego-stroking path to
power and prestige. National Socialism,
Communism, Capitalism, in the end it doesn’t matter; he passionately advocates
for each until circumstances make it advantageous to change sides, and each
time he does so without so much as a wink.
The
firebombing of Dresden and occupation by the Red Army soon follow, and Kurt
grows up into an aspiring artist under the dominating eye of the GDR. He is effortlessly talented, respected by
officials, teachers, and peers alike, and soon finds the love of his life when
he meets Ellie Seeband (Paula Beer). Her
father is, of course, that selfsame Professor who killed Kurt’s aunt. Kurt doesn’t know this, of course, but the
audience very much does, lending a threatening air to their every exchange with
each other. They are studies in
contrast; in one particularly interesting sequence, the film lays this bare via
parallel sex scenes. First we see Kurt
and Ellie having sex in their room; the light is warm, the music happy, the
vibe is one of happy fulfillment, of two people meant to find each other. Then we cut to Seeband cheating on his wife
with the family dance instructor; the light is cold, the movements fast, harsh,
and utterly without emotion or passion.
No other conjugal shot in a film this year struck me as more pathetic or
depressing. The horrific link between
these two men remains a secret to them both until very nearly the end of the
film. How this is revealed, I will not
say, except that it is one of 2018’s most visually and audibly striking
scenes.
Tom
Schilling is a bit of a cipher in the lead role; the struggles his character
experiences are less of him growing and learning and more him coping with what
outside circumstances force upon him. He’s
passable, but does not transcend the text of his role to the same extent that
Koch and Beer do, or even his late-in-life art teacher, the enigmatic van
Verten (Oliver Masucci), who also gets a killer of a scene all to himself in
the third act.
This
is the sort of grand historical fiction that used to be bread and butter for
major studios, but is rarely made today.
It is a great film, an experience to see (it’s over three hours, yet
never actually feels that long), and a genuine work of art that, I think,
people will be talking about for years to come every bit as much as we still
speak of Das Leben Der Anderen.
-Noah Franc
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