Fatherland

Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland reminds viewers of the attentive commitment of Thomas Mann’s daughter Erika (an always superb Sandra Hüller) to her father (Hanns Zischler). In fact, the formidable Erika enjoyed a full life as an actress, writer, and rally driver. In 1946 she reported on the Nuremberg war crimes trials before traveling to California to care for Thomas who was being treated for lung cancer. In Fatherland’s 1949 Germany Erika and Thomas drive in their black Buick sedan across the ruins of Germany, from Frankfurt to Weimer, from the former city under US control to the latter under Soviet domination where Thomas delivers a passionate, courageous anti-Nazi address advocating freedom from tyranny.