Fatherland

Sandra Hüller continues her astonishing run in the latest from the director of Ida and Cold War. Literary titan Thomas Mann (Hans Zischler) is making a tour of Allied West Germany and Soviet East Germany, accompanied by his daughter Erika (Hüller). It’s a strange trip, the man who built Germany’s self-conception, surveying a country now shattered in two. Erika, talented and forward-looking, must sit on the sidelines, but is able to observe a rich panorama of a changed world and assert her many talents in discreet but powerful ways.

Paweł Pawlikowski’s third Eastern European story in eye-opening black and white is an equal to its peers. Nothing short of a deep dive into the soul of Europe Post-World War II, Fatherland was the toast of the Berlin Film Festival and is grand as it is detailed.