FATHERLAND
(director/writer: Pawel Pawlikowski; screenwriter: Henk Handloegten; cinematographer: Łukasz Żal; editors: Piotr Wójcik, Pawel Pawlikowski; music: Marcin Masecki; cast: Hanns Zischler (Thomas Mann), Sandra Hüller (Erika Mann), August Diehl (Klaus Mann), Devid Striesow (Johannes R. Becher), David Menkin (Arthur Quint, hostile CIA agent), Anna Madeley (Betty Knox, AP journalist), Joachim Meyerhoff (Gustaf Gründgens), Joanna Kulig (jazz singer), Theo Trebs (Wolfgang Wagner); Runtime: 82; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Mario Gianani, Lorenzo Mieli, Ewa Puszczyńska, Jeanne Tremsal, Edward Berger, Dimitri Rassam, Lorenzo Gangarossa; Chapter2/MUBI/Nine Hours/Madman Film; 2026- in B/W, Poland/Germany/Italy/French-in German, Russian, French, English)
“Illuminating drama.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski (“Muse”/”Cold War”) directs and co-writes with Henk Handloegten this illuminating drama on the great German Nobel-Prize winning writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler). It covers his 1949 tour of Germany (Frankfurt & Weimar) he took with his troubled actress, writer and war correspondent daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller).
It’s superbly photographed by the DP Łukasz Żal in a lustrous monochrome.
Mann was accused by Germany for supposedly being a communist sympathizer and left the country to be in the United State. He returns from exile in California after being there for 16 years, where he became an American citizen. While reflecting on the Cold War, he asks if such an evil society as Nazi Germany can recover and become a healthy and productive nation again.
The trip to Goethe’s birthplace on his 200th birthday in Frankfurt is a success, even if he’s hounded by his sinister CIA protector (David Menkin) for not taking sides over Germany’s east & west divide. His unexpected visit to Weimar, now under communist control in East Germany, is met with disapproval in both divided Germany and America.
Meanwhile his depressed, suicidal, drug-addict, writer son Klaus (August Diehl), remains in California, as his shocking book of family secrets called Mephisto is made available, attacking his father for being a failed parent and pointing out his beloved sis’s failed marriage to an actor who became a Nazi collaborator, Gustaf Gründgens (Joachim Meyerhoff).
Excellent production values (set designs and a Bach soundtrack), direction, writing, and acting, make this a provocative film on both Mann’s divided family and on the divided Germany.
It played at the Cannes Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 7/28/2026 GRADE: A
dennisschwartzreviews.com