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Thursday, March 31, 2022

WERK OHNE AUTOR / NEVER LOOK AWAY (2018)

Twelve years after a dream debut in THE LIVES OF OTHERS/’06, eight after the commercial-oriented embarrassment of THE TOURIST/’10, writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s third film is a slow-burn 3-hr triumph covering three tumultuous German decades (mid-30s to mid-60s).  Structured like a 19th Century novel (‘rhymed’ plot strategies, coincidences & fateful meetings), Donnersmarck builds classic Bildsungsroman in pursuit of one of the least cinematographic of ideas: the growth of personal artistic impulse; and makes a thrilling thing of it.  Opening at the Nazi-proscribed ‘Degenerate’ Art exhibit in Munich, an indelible impression for a young boy taken by his beloved, if unstable aunt.  Falling deeply into depression & possible schizophrenia, she’s considered unfit for proper Aryan procreation, a case for sterilization or extermination.  Donnersmarck, constantly moving his story ahead in leaps of five years or so, covers the destruction of the boy’s family and the young man’s immersion into a post-war East German art world dominated by ‘Soviet Realism,’ an unchallenging style easily mastered by this preternaturally gifted draftsman, it proves yet a different sort of trap.  One eased by his love-at-first-sight meeting with a woman who not only reminds him of his aunt, but whose father turns out to be the doctor, a gynecologist of great reputation, who signed the orders dooming her.  This highly civilized man will just as calmly/methodically operate on his own daughter to have his way in her life.  And if old-fashioned melodramas once announced, ‘And then came the storm;’ 20th Century Germany always has ‘And then the Berlin Wall went up.’  Here, narrowly getting out before border crossings are forbidden, the search for an artistic identity continues in the free-spirited West, still shadowed by the destructive influence of the wife’s parents.  With patterned novelistic rhythms & plot mechanics all carefully worked out to carry the ideas forward, and a surprising level of sharp comic relief, it's phenomenally well shot by the great Caleb Deschanel (a worthy gig for a change), and superbly cast.  (Lots of good sex, too!  Our leads with perfect/perfectly matched asses.)  If only Donnersmarck can stay away from Hollywood temptation his fourth film should be something to look forward to.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned, his remarkable debut on East Germany’s ‘Stasi’ department, THE LIVES OF OTHERS.                    OR:  For the curious, THE TOURIST.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/12/tourist-2010.html

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