Sandra Hüller is having a prolific year. The German actor has already appeared in several big-budget films including Project Hail Mary and Digger, and has gotten rave reviews on the festival circuit with the historical drama Rose. The reasons are obvious for anyone who has been following her: She is comfortable in many genres—just look at her comic turn in Toni Erdmann—and she speaks many languages fluently (or close to it). Hüller’s gift as a polyglot serves her well in Fatherland, a historical drama from Polish filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski. Her character speaks German, English, and French throughout the film, and her arc is an opportunity for the director to explore a favorite topic of his—the moral and diplomatic minefields people must navigate in postwar Europe. The result can sometimes be slight, although often Pawlikowski finds more dramatic rigor in his economical run time than his more longwinded contemporaries.
The action is set in 1949, a period where relations between West and East Germany are just starting to get frosty. Hüller plays Erika Mann, the daughter and constant companion for her father, the great German writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler). They travel through Germany on a trip of reconciliation, one where Thomas speaks to the intellectual set as a way to help restore national pride. Thomas left Germany in 1933, before Nazism really took a stranglehold, so his reputation is relatively intact compared to those who stayed. This also means there are a lot of eyes on him and Erika while abroad, including the CIA spy Arthur Quint (David Menkin) and American reporter Betty Knox (Anna Madeley), who covered the Nuremberg Trials for London’s Evening Standard. Everyone in this milieu is weary and sophisticated, speaking with a cynical shorthand about where the country is headed. A personal crisis for Erika and Thomas threatens to obliterate all their planning.
Like Pawlikowski’s previous films, 2013’s Oscar-winning Ida and his 2018 masterpiece Cold War, he opts to shoot in black and white with a 4:3 aspect ratio, a kind of formal immersion that matches the period. The boxy ratio is also an opportunity for close-ups to take up the entire frame, a crucial decision that allows the viewer to scrutinize the characters who guard their feelings and often remain enigmatic. Sometimes there are tense negotiations, like when the children of the disgraced German composer Richard Wagner ask Thomas whether they can help restore his reputation, and others where Erika sees her ex-husband—a Nazi sympathizer—at a cocktail bar. Pawlikowski mostly does not look for easy or convenient solutions, and instead sees these real-life figures as stand-ins for major debates happening in the period. That he does all this in less than 90 minutes, goes to show how thoroughly he understands this complex, thorny situation.
The relationship between Thomas and Erika is front and center. Even with the added baggage of Thomas’ stature, they are clearly close—a father-daughter team where they comfort and frustrate each other. Erika finds a way to tolerate his flaws, such as his myopia over whether his big speeches about Johann Wolfgang von Goethe are just a publicity stunt, while Thomas is the kind of towering figure who is so self-involved, he sometimes cannot see the effect he has on others. When Erika finally confronts him, they both unearth wounds that only come after decades of shared history.
What complicates this family dynamic is Erika’s brother Klaus (August Diehl), a sullen man who resents his father and sometimes seems to haunt Erika’s trek through Europe. Diehl is effective with his limited screen time, including scenes where his mere appearance complicates an already strained trip. Fatherland’s final scene resolves these threads with an understated denouement, one where there is catharsis through accepting how emotionally fraught, and dependent Erika and Thomas now find themselves. This final scene is convenient, maybe a little facile, although the actors underplay it so perfectly it does not matter if Pawlikowski sometimes lets his characters off the hook.
The story may be set nearly a century ago, but the current political implications of Fatherland can be staggering. Artists today often struggle to meet the current moment, just like Thomas once did, while slimy opportunists try to sneak their way back to legitimacy. Many characters here claim they never really were a Nazi, and as far-right governments possibly topple in the years ahead, similar denials will probably become more common. Fatherland doesn’t have a hard moral stance exactly, and shows how following your own values is a better governing principle than trying to anticipate which way the wind goes. This is no small feat, and when it gets too much—like it does with Erika during one memorable moment—there is always an opportunity to curse the people in the street who disgust you. It seems no one, not even the composed adult child of a Nobel-winning writer, can resist telling Nazi punks to fuck off.
Fatherland (R, 81 mins.) opens at AFI Silver Theatre, Angelika Mosaic, and Cinema Arts on Oct. 30.
