Werk ohne Autor (2018)

	Also Known As: Never look away, Opera senza autore
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
	Actors: Sebastian Koch, Tom Schilling, Paula Beer, Saskia Rosendahl
	Country: D, I
	Genre: Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 06.10.2018, Schauburg, German version
Synopsis: As a kid, Kurt Barnert (Schilling), witnessed the kidnapping of his aunt Elisabeth by a group of Nazi doctors. Doctor Carl Seeband (Koch) let her then disappear for sake of pure race. In East Germany he starts studying arts. When he meets the student Ellie (Beer), he is convinced that he has met the love of his life. Once in the West, both move to Düsseldorf. And Kurt begins to create paintings that touch his generation and are actually a mirror of his traumas.
Review: I have to tell that the movie is about 3 hours. And that I did not notice that during the movie. The story has several levels of understanding: the fate of two families within German History; the thought about art definition; the emancipation of an artist with regard to his major financial support; the emancipation of a woman with regard to her parents; the hidden Nazi confronted to his past. One of the major plus of the movie is that the plot looks at both sides of Germany after WWII.  Each story is dealt with a lot of thoughts and depth and still tense and suspenseful. This is so seldom in movies and this is exactly what I like and what I am looking for in movies. The acting is amazing. Sebastian Koch is always great when he is working with Henckel von Donnersmarck like in Das Leben der anderen. Tom Schilling as shy lonely artist, Paula Beer as submitted daughter, both as authentic lovers believing in each other. They are all excellent. And I believe it is not only that they are good but that the director is amazing with them.  The handling of the camera and the photography is clean and well thought. Just thinking about the obvious connotation of the blurred view of the child loosing his aunt and the paintings à la Gerhard Richter. But also the optical effects in the atelier in Düsseldorf and the common atelier for posing social realism students in Dresden.  For the fans of contemporary artists, this is full of allusions to Beuys and Richter. For the historians, this gives an overview on West and East Germany situations after WWII. For historian philosophers, this throws the ideas of collaboration, of redemption, of justice, of support to murders, of eugenism through emotions.
Rating: 9 /10