Picturehouse Blog

Following up the critically acclaimed Ida and Cold War, Paweł Pawlikowski returns to cinemas with another masterfully executed work. Winning him a share of the Best Director prize at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, Fatherland is a captivating father/daughter road movie. The father in question is Thomas Mann (played imperiously by Munich's Hanns Zischler), the German Nobel Prize-winning author of such works as The Magic Mountain and Death In Venice. Alongside him is his daughter, Erika (Sandra Hüller), the writer and critic who would later pen a biography of her father. It's another spellbinding lead role for Hüller, adding to her remarkable body of work following films including Anatomy Of A Fall, The Zone Of Interest and Project Hail Mary. 

The film is set in 1949 as Erika and Mann embark on a journey through war-torn Germany, where he is due to receive the Goethe Prize. He has lived in California for the past 13 years, making this return to the Fatherland fraught with danger for Mann; should he enter the Communist-controlled Weimar, he may not be allowed to return to the States. 

Following Ida and Cold War, Fatherland completes a loose "post-war Europe" trilogy of sorts for Pawlikowski. Again, it's shot in black and white by acclaimed cinematographer Łukasz Żal, who crafts some sublime, haunting, monochrome imagery, truly plunging audiences into a country shattered by conflict. As the director explores how a society can repair itself after such nationwide trauma, every image is meticulously selected in a film that compacts itself perfectly into just 82 minutes. 

Alongside Zischler and Hüller, Fatherland co-stars August Diehl (Inglourious Basterds, A Hidden Life), who features as Erika's brother Klaus. An author in his own right, addled by drink and depression – partly from living in the shadow of his literary titan father – he is glimpsed just once, in the opening scene, alone in a room in Cannes, speaking on the telephone to Erika. 

We discover how disillusioned he's become with the literary world in this remarkable curtain raiser, perhaps the best hotel-set opening to a movie since Martin Sheen's torment in Apocalypse Now. Diehl performs it boldly and it's typical of a film that effortlessly transports you into another world, right to the very transcendental final scene. This is a work of breath-taking beauty and profound insight.

James Mottram

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Fatherland is in cinemas from 23 October — Book Now!