Fatherland

Synopsis

In 1949, Thomas Mann, accompanied by his daughter Erika Mann, received two Goethe Prizes – one in Frankfurt in West Germany and one in Soviet-occupied zone in Weimar. In a prologue, Erika tries to convince her brother Klaus to come on the trip, but he doesn’t want to enter Germany ever again. Soon after, he commits suicide. Pawel Pawlikowski (IDA, COLD WAR) has taken this historical event as the starting point to make a dense, vicious, and brilliant film about post-war Germany. The abusive letter denouncing Mann as a traitor arrives at the Frankfurt hotel even before Thomas Mann himself. On the other side, there are careerists and brown nosers who throw themselves at Mann. Wolfgang and Wieland Wagner want to revive the festival and dedicate it “entirely to music” this time. Erika’s ex-husband, Gustaf Gründgens, insists that Göring had approached him—after all, he was merely an actor. In the East, Johannes R. Becher is trying to persuade Thomas Mann to become president of the Akademie der Künste. Mann asks why they didn’t turn to Heinrich Mann, who was much more favorably disposed to socialism. “Uncle Heinrich doesn’t have a Nobel Prize,” Erika snaps. Again and again, she lets her gaze wander over the faces feigning devotion in St. Paul's Church. Where were you four years ago, she asks, the film asks. VATERLAND depicts the bitter picture of a society that returned to “normality“ incredibly quickly, shamefully quickly. In the face of deceitful depravity in both West and East, Mann’s measured words fall on deaf ears, like drops of water on a hot stone. Yet he remains undeterred in his resolve, even when news of Klaus’s death reaches him. “Klaus shouldn’t have done this to his mother,“ is all he has to say.. Hanns Zischler as Thomas, Sandra Hüller as Erika and August Diehl as Klaus Mann are all very good, but Pawlikowski’s concern is less about empathizing with a family and more about a period that may not be as long ago as the black and white images may lead you to believe. The director, who won the directing prize at Cannes, only needed 82 minutes in which everything works – from the smart screenplay that Pawlikowski co-wrote with Henk Handloegten (“Babylon Berlin“) to a music selection that makes up its own narrative level - such as when the Comedian Harmonists sing “somewhere in the world there’s a little bit of happiness“ during the journey through the devastated landscapes. Hendrike Bake (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN) Translation: Elinor Lewy

Genres

• Drama

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