It’s been a long time since a film has moved me to the extent that this tour-de-force has when it collided with my life. Donnersmarck’s masterwork follows the life of an artist from his boyhood through his youth and into adulthood. Set in Germany at the outset of the Second World War and spanning decades the three-hour feature captures the multifarious complexities of life in times of war. Without excess sentimentality or caricature, he expresses the true philosophical horror of Nazism as well as its’ powerful comprehensiveness.
The plot starts with the protagonist’s beautiful aunt Elizabeth (played by Saskia Rosendahl) coming to a psychotic break and being ‘treated’ by a doctor who, despite the pleadings of the family reports her to the health commission for forced sterilization; it would not be the last time the central theme of eugenics emerges in a violent instantiation in the picture. When she learns that she is to be sterilized she pleads with the director of the gynecological hospital to spare her, it is one of the most monumentally moving scenes of the feature where a woman, a beautiful woman, uses every avenue at her disposal to plead for her progeny, for her genetic line, for a chance at motherhood. The horrific scene concludes with the head of the hospital Herr Professor Carl Seeband (expertly played by Sebastian Koch) proceeding with the enforcement of the plan and signing off on her extermination for the purpose of freeing hospital beds for German soldiers. In the contemporary culture where motherhood is so often denigrated the stark reality of the human imperative to procreate, and the mystical magical gift that is the ability to create life come together in this infinitely tragic scene to relieve us of our blasé clichés .
Our protagonist (played by Tom Schilling), witnessing his aunt forcibly taken from the family home by orderlies, grows up painting, and after the war enrolls in an art school in Dresden where he is pushed into creating socialist realist art and is continually having to reconcile his passion with his work. The work he produces he recognizes as deeply fake, and although enjoying great success asks his friend to paint over his work to use as canvasses when he makes his escape to West Berlin with his wife (the daughter of the very same Professor Seeband). I will refrain from continuing a retelling of the intricate and believable plot in favor of the impressions that the director was able to impart.
‘Never Look Away’ indeed does not let us look away, we cannot help but see the strengths and downfalls of Nazi philosophy, Socialist Realist art, the post-war Avant-garde movement, justice and loyalty, conformity, and, importantly, the strange mysticism that lives alongside us. One key differentiator of this film was complete avoidance of the Holocaust, or more generally any reference to Jews of the time. The fact that all the characters were German makes the horrors of the Third Reich more personal of a story around the family of the protagonist. Seeing the monstrosity they inflicted on their own people, their own families, brings home the scale of the tragedy of the time in impossibly clear contrast.
Technically the film is exceptional – the score is perfect, the visuals ingenious, and the acting superb. Not a single central or secondary character felt out of place or underperformed. The direction opened up a difficult and deep story to bloom and gift us an experience that aught join the cannon.
Worth watching 9.5/10