Con’s Score: 3.5 brush strokes
This bio pic is so loosely based on visual artist Gerhard Richter’s life, it’s misleading to call it one. At 189 minutes, it can be called an epically touching tribute by writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others) to the craft of Richter’s art.
Kurt Barnett (Tom Schilling) is exposed to art during the nationalist socialist times of the Fuehrer by Auntie Elizabeth (Daskia Rosendahl). She’s a tad schizophrenic and back then it condemned you to a euthanasia program, that was a wicked forbear of what was to come. Kurt is fortunate enough to be too young to join the Nazis but the effects of the war on his family are stark. His father, once a headmaster, cleans steps. Nazis are allowed to escape.
Kurt meets the love of his life, Ellie (Paula Beer). She‘s luminous, resembles his aunt and is the daughter of Professor Seeband (Sebastian Koch) who condemned her. It’s a tangled web fate can weave, but it’s a pity Donnersmack doesn’t quite untangle it.
The story follows the Professor’s move to kill their relationship, and their move to Düsseldorf in West Germany, where modern art is flourishing, in an almost comical way. There are lots more storylines and sub plots at play here, but this review could become as long as the film itself.
This was nominated for a foreign film Oscar. What shines about this film is the artistic process; how Kurt finds himself as an artist and how all these stories inform his every stroke. It’s when he drops pretence does he become a real artist, and once again, honesty is the key. The plot lines dissolve away and it’s what’s on canvas that impresses us.
The acting of the leads also holds this together. The chemistry is real and this couple are endearing. The support cast are also superb, particularly Ina Weiss as Mrs Seeband and Oliver Masucci as the enigmatic art teacher who delivers a key monologue. His intensity is magnetic. One day it will become as ubiquitous as Christopher Walken’s gold watch monologue.
At over three hours in length, it’s a surprisingly easy stretch. The line ‘never look away’ keeps resonating for Kurt and I was never tempted to. It didn’t resonate as much for Donnersmack. Many of the sub plots remain unresolved and they were the excessive parts of the film. It’s as if he failed to face the very truth his subject does – it didn’t need them.
We are still left with an impressive foray into the artistic mind, and one artists should journey into. I only wish we didn’t take the long way, when the true way would have been shorter.
Con Nats – On The Screen
