Fatherland – Paweł Pawlikowski | #film

Fatherland – Paweł Pawlikowski

Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland, which earned him the Best Director Award at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, is a cinematic meditation on the essence of art and obligations of an artist. Austere and demanding as it might be, Fatherland is also truthful and gripping.

Eight years after the premiere of his previous film, Cold War, Pawlikowski returned with his most hermetic and uncompromising picture to date. Based on an episode from Colm Tóibín’s The Magician, the film follows Thomas (Hanns Zischler) and Erika (Sandra Hüller) Mann travelling through post-WWII Germany. Just over 80 minutes long, Fatherland tells the story of European literature giant’s relationship with his daughter, history, the German nation, and finally his reaction to the suicide of his son, Klaus. Pawlikowski is yet again returning to his favourite themes: torn identity and ideology as a form of subjugation.

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Fatherland is the final part of the historical trilogy, following Ida and Cold War. Visually similar (distinctive aspect ratio, framing that leaves looming space over the characters’ heads), it is distinct for its emotional restraint.

In the two previous installments of the trilogy, the director looked for narrative formulas that would fill his intellectual cinema with emotion – introducing a romantic plot in Ida, a story of post-Holocaust reckoning, and using melodramatic genre conventions in Cold War, otherwise a film about history, politics, and post-WW2 Europe. The emotional content of both films universalised the stories and made them more palatable. Conversely, Fatherland is a piece of purely intellectual cinema. It doesn’t search for an additional plot layer that would carry philosophical meanings – it speaks to this end directly.

Telling the story of Erika and Thomas Mann, Pawlikowski poses questions about the social role of art and the artist. Art is the main character of the film – it accompanies the characters in nearly every moment and is the subject discussed in almost every scene. It returns when the Manns discuss Bach or Wagner, it is the topic of the speeches given by Thomas on both sides of the inner German border. The West German radio plays American hits while in East Germany choral songs by Red Army soldiers. Before dinner, on one side of the border a choir sings German classics and on the other uniformed soldiers sing propaganda songs. As we watch different forms and roles of art, Pawlikowski depicts different models of artistry and varied notions of what an artist owes to their country, their fatherland.

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Fatherland, dir. Paweł Pawlikowski, photo: Agata Grzybowska / Kino Świat

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One argument scene shows the writer-father telling the daughter about his duty toward history and his nation. As a great writer and moral authority, he believes in his capability to influence the country’s fate. In response, Erika blurts out the painful truth – two empires have already mapped the future out, and Thomas, the great artist, is merely a background melody.

Pawlikowski develops this thesis in the film, showing the danger behind entangling art and politics. He reaches for Wagner, whose genius music became a tool for the Third Reich, and Gustaf Gründgens, the actor on whom Klaus Mann based the character of the opportunistic collaborator Hendrik Höfgen in his novel Mephisto, Bach, who became a ‘tool’ for the Church, and Goethe, the figure of dispute between post-war East and West Germany.

‘Fatherland’, directed by Paweł Pawlikowski – Image Gallery

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Fatherland is seductive – on account of its courage, aesthetic integrity, but also its humour. Pawlikowski sneaks many delicate jokes into the film, meant to evoke a smile rather than laughter. The comedic micro-scenes are a great counterpoint to the solemn, philosophical story about the fight between the private and the public. For instance, an almost cabaret-like performance (a cameo by Joanna Kulig) brings out the absurdity of grave, pompous dialogues, and when Thomas Mann is crossing the border, a Russian soldier asks him for a cigarette but receives an elegant cigar instead.

All those comedic accents do not turn attention away from what is most important in Fatherland – the story of an artist forced to confront his own self. Pawlikowski shows the identity of a writer for whom culture is a haven that occasionally forces him to face painful truth. In the final scene, the director seems to reject the notion of art as a vocation and the artist as a national hero. Sitting at the bench in a demolished church, the great Thomas Mann listens to Bach played on a dilapidated organ and, for a brief moment, is forced to face his own self, his past, and the death of his son who loved Bach. A figure comes alive, becomes human.

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Fatherland, dir. Paweł Pawlikowski, photo: Agata Grzybowska / Kino Świat

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An account of the cinematic power of Fatherland would not be complete without a mention of the two actors who make this history absolutely humane. Hanns Zischler gives an impressively reticent performance as Thomas Mann, depicting a man hiding behind the mask of a national bard. It is, however, Sandra Hüller who steals the spotlight. The actress, who recently grew to be one of the biggest stars of European and world cinema and is well recognized for her roles in Toni Erdmann, The Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall, only needs a few seconds to make us see Erika Mann in front of our eyes – a somewhat cynical, slightly weary daughter of the great writer, an intellectual and an anti-fascist, and a sister mourning her beloved brother’s death.

While Fatherland is not an easy watch, attuning to its frequency can reveal one of the most inspiring, intelligent films of the past several months – perhaps even years.