Fatherland was a prizewinner at the Cannes Film Festival, 2026. The Polish director is Paweł Pawlikowski
Germany, 1949
Thomas Mann, accompanied by his daughter Erika, arrives in Germany, where he will give lectures, and will be awarded the Goethe prize for literature.
This film is pure atmosphere, the lights are always low indoors, and outside it is often raining. We watch Erika driving in the rain, to the regular tock tock of the wipers. And when the sun does shine, for example in the grounds at Weimar, (now in East Germany, in the Russian controlled sector) the light slices its way through foliage, onto statues and paved paths. The shadows hold the strength in these scenes, the blades of light more like judgement than shafts of reassurance.
The slow shots of driving, of arriving at various hotels and lecture halls, show the tedium of travel and touring, even for someone as revered, at least by some, as the Nobel prize winning writer, Thomas Mann. But he is now in his seventies, and the travel, writing his speeches, talking to people at receptions, are tiring. He has been in exile since 1933, first in France and later in USA. He had not intended to come back to Germany, his Fatherland, but because he has been awarded the Goethe prize and invited to speak in German cities including Frankfurt and Weimar, here he is.
But ambivalence weaves its way through the landscape, the cities, the receptions given in his honour. Whether or not it really was a good idea, whether or not Klaus would come to join them. And when the news arrives of Klaus’ death, how could they go on? And was it really a good idea to go to Weimar, where Goethe had spent most of his life, where he died and was buried? Mann claimed he could not make this German tour and accept the Goethe prize without visiting Goethe's city, unthinkable. But Weimer is now in the Russian communist controlled part of Germany and this would not go down well with the US authorities. Mann now has American citizenship (though Erika does not), but this would not prevent the American authorities turning against him, which in fact they did.
With a minimum of dialogue, Pawlikowski draws the clear lines of family relationships. The tensions and difficulties between Thomas and Klaus, the deep bond between Klaus and Erika. The rising tension between Erika and her father. There are also the relations between Thomas and different sections of German society, where some lauded him and some distrusted, even disliked, him. And there were those who flattered, who wanted his endorsement. They saw how useful it would be for them and their projects, to have the backing of the revered Nobel laureate.
And all the time, in the cities visibly damaged by the war, there is the unspoken, the frightful things that went on in the war but no one wants to talk about, because there is a new country to be built.
It cannot be mentioned, yet it travels with them, in the driving rain. And in the grand al fresco summer banquets, in the entertainment, the school choir, the choir of young men in uniform. Every meal, every choir, holds uneasy echoes of the past.
There are 2 questions which Thomas and Erika have to dodge, when they are asked: Germany is divided into US and Russian-controlled zones. What politics (communist or capitalist) do you support?
And where is home? This is a painful question for both of them, when their homeland is in ruins, many of their past friends made compromises with the nazi regime, and the country which did take them in and gave them refuge, (USA) has cooled towards them.
Where is home, where do they belong?
The artistry is superb, the slow pace, the ambiguities rippling under the surface, the rare moments of candour when people actually say what they think or feel, the play of light, the atmospheric presentation of the countryside, of derelict cities and preserved old houses, and the new songs and anthems made by a people desperate to look to the future and forget their past. The final scene, in a semi-ruined church, is inspired.
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