Fatherland 🎥 is the based-on truth story of Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika, visiting his homeland of Germany in 1949. He’s there to receive the Goethe Prize — in both West and East Germany, oddly. We see something of the differences between the two sides, and the suggestion that his now-home in America may be threatened by his visiting the East. But the true pressure on Mann comes from the contemporaneous death of his son, Klaus. Or it should, but this a very cold film, emotionally. Mann himself seems largely unaffected by his son’s death, though Erika mourns her brother.
It’s very watchable, beautifully shot in black and white, and no longer than it needs to be. Though I have a hard time understanding what exactly the purpose in making it was.