Post-war Madness

 A pair from the Santa Fe International Film Festival:

 

FATHERLAND (A-minus) - Sandra Huller glumly balances melancholy and black humor in the latest black-and-white character study from Pawel Pawlikowski, who has done these period pieces well, with "Ida" and "Cold War." 

 

File this under: You can't go home again. A grim-faced Hanns Zischler plays celebrated author Thomas Mann (Death in Venice), who returns from American exile to visit his native Germany -- both East and West -- 16 years after he fled Hitler's takeover and four years after the Nazis' defeat. Mann feels little else but disdain for his former compatriots, especially those trying to pretend that they were not fascist sympathizers or collaborators. He has particularly harsh words for the fawning sons of the composer Wagner.

But this is Huller's movie. The opening scene features a phone conversation between her character, Mann's daughter Erika, and her brother, Klaus (August Diehl), who is holed up in France, wallowing in nihilism and opiate abuse. Both offspring were writers in their own right, Klaus lashing out at the Nazi regime in Mephisto. Their interaction pulses with raw sibling emotion, and that connection will carry through the entire film, right up until the perfect ending.

Pawlikoski, needing only about 75 minutes before the final credits roll, runs Erika and her weary father initially through West Germany, full of phonies and snobs, before heading behind the descending Iron Curtain (full of soldiers and grifters) to convey the Soviet influence in Weimar and beyond. (Early on, the dichotomy is characterized as Stalin vs. Mickey Mouse.) Despite the depressing theme, a subtle, cutting humor permeates the interactions among father-daughter and their various hosts and well-wishers. An uneasy Jazz Age atmosphere abounds, as if the entire country is trying to erase the recent past and reconstitute the pre-Hitler mood. 

But the Mann family -- and Pawlikowski -- are not in the mood to be forgiving or patient. They have disgust for the ugliness that took hold in Germany in the 1930s. Memories are too fresh and emotions  raw. The director, writing here with Henk Hendloegten ("Good Bye Lenin"), skips efficiently through Mann's literary itinerary, sometimes shooting in a quasi-documentary format, including a jangly press conference with Dylanesque vibes. He packs a lot into those riveting 75 minutes.

THE LIBERATION (B) - Give me Carrie Coon and a cult -- especially an all-female cult ... ruled by a Mean Girl -- and I'll give you two hours. 

 

Coon carries a film like few others can. Here she is Rita, a frazzled 40-something wife and mother of two college-age daughters who burns out on her banking job and falls for the curated camaraderie of a cult led by an attractive, charismatic young woman, Ricki (Lily James), who has assembled a sisterhood around the philosophy of "clarity, honesty, forgiveness." It's the early '80s, and cults are having a moment in the extended hangover from the hippie 1960s. 

Rita is plagued by the past -- she still takes care of her ailing father, who, along with her, survived the Holocaust; they are riven with guilt over the deaths in the camps of Rita's mother and three sisters. Ricki's pack of women offers Rita an escape from those ghosts, as well as the empty nest she is facing with her cipher of a husband, Reuban (Tracy Letts), who is both confounded and outraged by Rita's escape from her boring existence.

Rita's daughters come to the cult's compound to rescue their mother, who now goes by Naia and is skin and bones due to the penurious nutritional philosophy of the cult. This spry saga quickly settles into a comfortable movie-of-the week pace reminiscent of Reagan-era productions (whether that is intentional or not). Cliches creep in. We will get a resident of the camp irrationally denied medical care who must be rushed to the hospital. The allure of the cult never fully reveals itself. The plot turns predictable, and short-cuts are taken.

Still, there is a juicy appeal among the three main leads. Coon's transformation from chubby-cheeked working mom to frail captive (a Reverse De Niro) is compelling, quietly echoing images from the Holocaust itself. James ("Baby Driver"), now in her late 30s, exudes a soft-spoken menace as the manipulative Ricki, fully going toe-to-toe with Coons. Letts, a go-to character actor, is equal parts concerned and flustered as the old-school spouse who can't believe his wife is anything but content. The weak spots are the daughters. Odessa Young is a cipher as the older Jo. Bella Ramsey (HBO's "The Last of Us") is the weakest link, emoting too often with her big eyes and straining her acting chops with hysterical outbursts that hit false notes.

Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv ("Skin," "Strangers," "Golda") knows how to spin a period piece (this is based on a true story) and allow his actors to stretch their limbs. You might feel like you've seen much of this before, but the execution here might leave you a tad rattled. 

BONUS TRACKS

From a key moment in "Fatherland," Bach's Wohl mir, dass Ich Jesum habe, cantata 147 ("Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"):

 

And the Mills Brothers capture the World War II era -- or the queasy hopefulness that preceded the outbreak -- with "Tiger Rag":