Fatherland

Paweł Pawlikowski, who brought us the magnificent 'Ida' and 'Cold War', continues his Post-Second-World-War voyage with a docudrama based on a trip Nobel-prize winning author Thomas Mann made back to his home country in 1949 to receive the Goethe Prize. "As with its predecessors, the characters here go through the ringers of personal crises, with extra rolling pressure applied by the politics of the times. In Fatherland's case, Mann finds himself compelled to confront his failings as a parent and also make an invidious choice between the ideologies of 'Mickey Mouse or Stalin' when the lofty rhetoric of high art can no longer offer ivory-tower sanctuary" - Leslie Felperin, Hollywood reporter.

He journeys round the ruined country, West and East, with his daughter, Erica - herself a writer and actor and war correspondent - "making us feel as if we are visiting the two Germanies in 1949" and giving Paweł Pawlikowski time to talk about "idealism and its delusions; familial relationships; the nature of nationality and home; the Cold War race to capitalise on cultural heritage; the once-untouchable status assigned to eminent male artists" - Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily.

Now living in the USA, which side is Mann on? Has he betrayed his fatherland? Is he now a communist sympathiser?

The whole is beautifully acted by Hans Zischler and Sandra Huller, and cinematographed by Lukasz Pal - giving us another masterpiece..?