I am sitting here with a wide view across Berlin. The TV Tower rises out of the city like a mushroom from the ground. For someone who is not from here, it has something of a lighthouse about it: it reminds me where I am. Berlin is one of the most historically charged places in the world. A city that was once as torn apart as two bodies of water that meet and yet never mix. Today, it washes people from the most different walks of life onto its shores. Some have the privilege of choosing their home for themselves. Others never had that choice. And while I sit here looking across the rooftops of the city, I find myself wondering: when does a home become more than just a place? When does it reach its most radical form? “Heimat”. That’s how you would call it in German.
It is precisely this question that Paweł Pawlikowski explores in his new film FATHERLAND (orig. VATERLAND). At the centre are the writer Thomas Mann, who fled into exile under N@zi rule, and his daughter Erika, portrayed by Sandra Hüller. Hüller has become one of the most exciting actors in German cinema. If you have seen her in anything before, you will know that she has this rare ability to make every character feel completely real. Watching the trailer alone, there were moments that genuinely gave me goosebumps, because pure emotions were delivered through the screen: “Shut up, f@scist scum!”, she screams out of a rainy window. Thomas Mann was not new territory for Hüller. She first read his work at school and later became fascinated by the radio broadcasts he made from exile, urging Germans to stand up against the regime.
In FATHERLAND, her character Erika ends up being caught between loyalty to her father, grief for her brother and a country she no longer quite recognises. Four years after the end of the war, the two return to a country that no longer feels like theirs. Germany lies in ruins, both politically and morally. Yet while the public expects words of reconciliation from the Nobel Prize-winning author, father and daughter carry their own conflicts with them.
As the journey unfolds, the clearer it becomes that returning and belonging are not the same thing. If you ask me, Heimat is something so intimate that it reacts sensitively to every change. Like the source of your deepest trust. FATHERLAND really mirrors that fragility.
Especially when you have been forced to leave your homeland, a deep longing for it begins to grow inside you. And because that longing can never quite be satisfied, it eventually turns into a dream. That is exactly what the journey in Pawlikowski’s FATHERLAND feels like. The two main characters travel through the destroyed landscape of post-war Germany in a black Buick.
“You get into this car and into a dream. I think Paweł uses the car as a dream machine.” – Hanns Zischler [plays Thomas Mann]
This feeling is reinforced by the striking black-and-white imagery. What makes the film so interesting is that it never loses itself in the grand sweep of history. Instead, it always comes back to people. To a family that appears impressive from the outside, but behind closed doors is just as complicated as any other. Somehow, you feel seen. The only difference is that the father happens to be Thomas Mann.
Thomas Mann was one of the most influential literary figures of the twentieth century, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929 and celebrated for works such as Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain. After openly opposing the N@zis, he left Germany and spent years in Switzerland and the US.
FATHERLAND is set in 1949. And yet the film feels as though it is speaking directly to the present. It becomes clear to me that Heimat is one of those words that never grows old. When people in the United States are torn from their lives by ICE. When thousands wave flags together at a football World Cup and at the same time, you find yourself wondering where patriotism ends and nationalism begins. And as the AfD continues to gain strength in the polls and political camps drift further and further apart, belonging is once again being negotiated. Who belongs? Who does not?
“I think the film reminds us that it is still possible to show backbone.” – Sandra Hüller
As I found myself thinking again about my view across Berlin, Heimat suddenly seemed like a responsibility. One that stretches beyond ourselves, connecting us to those who came before us and those who will come after us. Maybe Heimat is not something we possess at all, but something that has to be fought for. And the film opens up the possibility that perhaps that is exactly where its beauty lies.
Read more about Sandra Hüller here.