#Florian henckel von dommersmarck

[pulp-diction]

The first thing you should know about "Never Look Away," Germany's Oscar-nominated film (for both Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography, though it won neither), is that it has a pretty wide berth.

That includes both run-time (clocking in at about 188 minutes) and subject matter, tracing the lives of two men and their families through the end of World War II in Germany: Carl Seeband, a Nazi doctor who sterilized women against their will for the Reich; the other, Kurt Barnert, the nephew of one of those women – and, eventually, the artist boyfriend of the doctor's daughter Ellie.

Their stories weave and wind around each other, with plenty of the three-plus hours spent on how the war shaped their respective prospects.

The result is sumptuous — as Kurt rebels against the socialist values that guide his budding art career, and Carl tries to outrun his past without abandoning his beliefs, writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck pits art and history against each other in an earnest sentimental way, building a world around these two men's approaches.

Though the story's shadow looms large, it's more like a Chuck Close painting, obsessed with the small points that make up the arm of history. Kurt's family chuckles over how oppressive the Third Reich's standards are as they attempt to visit his committed aunt; we meet characters who were merely referenced as they are bombed in Dresden. "Never Look Away" traces just why people defected to West Germany, even if (on paper) they were doing just fine in the East. It is a grand saga, but on a small scale.

Often times characters repeat what feels like the touchstone for the film, with various applications: "What is true is beautiful." And yet, by using too wide a brush, it feels too tidy, too kitsch by the end (without even getting into how the alleged inspiration for the film, Gerhard Richter told The New Yorker that it was an "abuse and grossly" distoriting of his biography).

What was building to a face-off between the two men, with plenty of explorative fun of avant-garde art movements, becomes an exercise in syrupy-sweet resolution, without providing much resolution beyond achievement anyway. Put another way, what's beautiful isn't always true, and it sometimes seems as if "Never Look Away" doesn't know the difference.

This is not to say that the movie isn't rewarding in some way; Caleb Deschanel's cinematography nom is well-earned, as he uses shots to explore how art and the creation of image fall together and apart. Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, and Paula Beer often embody the aching loneliness of their roles, while Saskia Rosendahl as Kurt's aunt Elizabeth is hypnotically good.

But there's a sense that either the story stumbled into what poignancy "Never Look Away" does have, or else it just takes the easy way out of attempting to make grand pronouncements. With the movie, Donnersmarck touches on something true about how biography and history swirl around to make inspiration in a way that is both alchemic and ineffable. In the end, however, is deeply meditative but without anything truly to say.

[twinloners-blog]

15. Das Leben der Anderen (2006) - dir. Florian Henckel von Dommersmarck

An intriguing tale of privacy in East Berlin right before the Wall came down. But, more importantly, a cinematic work of art - with characters that are different at home and work. Apartments that don't feel like sets for a film but homes for people. The Lives of Others is a fantastic foreign drama.