Set in 1949 Germany, Fatherland tracks the return of famed German writer Professor Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) to his country as he’s set to receive a Goethe Prize for his work in Frankfurt. While there, Professor Mann is also set to embark upon a road trip to Weimar in the newly formed East Germany controlled by the Soviets to receive a Goethe Prize from them as well. Joined by his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller), as they make the drive East, they receive unsettling news regarding the Professor’s son and Erika’s brother Klaus (August Diehl). The father and daughter thus try to navigate their grief while also navigating a changing Germany still reckoning with its role in World War II and what place it will have in the Cold War future.
Fatherland is an intriguing documentation of postwar Germany, tracing the shadow of the war that looms over everything in the recovering nation. Everyone in this film is haunted by the war and Germany’s place in it, trying to reconcile a future with promise for atonement weighted by a past with heavy shame. Fatherland establishes this underlying tension extremely convincingly through both character interaction and even through its visuals as we watch the characters try to rebuild and reacclimate both themselves and German society into normalcy through formal galas and dinners, but the underlying unresolved guilt and shame resurfacing in various ways. Characters will have conversations that begin normally and cordially, but a memory or reminder from the war will surface during the course of the interaction and end with a tense confrontation. Even in the background of the scenes themselves are shots of the bombed out shells of buildings, a physical representation of the not too distant past that has yet to be rebuilt.
As tense as the Germany’s past is in the film, so too is its future as the burgeoning Cold War is present as Professor Mann makes his way from the newly formed and Allies-controlled Frankfurt, West Germany to the Soviet-controlled Weimar, East Germany. The subtle differences that would come to define the Cold War era are present, from the differences between songs played on the radio in each locale to the more sterile and rundown appearance of East Germany versus the rebuilding West. Fatherland also does well in portraying the ideological differences between the two sides in how it presents the underlying totalitarianism of the East Germans and their focus on propaganda, which isn’t present when Professor Mann is being hosted in the West, and a scene involving an East German man attempting to whistleblow on East Germany’s treatment toward dissenters. These differences are subtly interwoven within the regular experience of the Manns in each location, effectively highlighting their small but growing importance in the years to come.
While this framing of the world in which Fatherland takes place is the main text of the film, its subtextual connection to the more personal family story of the Mann’s personal drama is slightly less clear. After learning the news about Klaus, Professor Mann attempts to put on a brave face with any grief over Klaus lingering in the background unmentioned or unnoticed for almost the entirety of the film, despite Erika’s opposite reaction. Perhaps Professor Mann’s decision to mask his emotions over the situation parallels his country’s approach to the fresh shame over the rise of Nazism and its role in starting World War II? Whatever the case, Fatherland provides unclear direction here which could leave some in the audience feeling as if an element of the film is missing.
Fatherland is an interesting portrait of life in the immediate aftermath of World War II within the country from whence everything began. For curious history buffs, it provides what feels like a front row seat into the environment of postwar Germany and the minds of the German citizens who lived through it, survived, and must now navigate the shame and guilt of what their country did. For those less interested in the historical piece, the film may be a little light on story for the main characters that it follows, unclear on themes and messaging. Pawel Pawlikowski’s black and white cinematography remains fantastic with perfectly framed and blocked scenes that almost resemble paintings at times. While the story may be lacking for some, Fatherland’s positives far outweigh its negatives.
Image: MUBI
