THE STORY – A plot of land, a house by the lake, its changing inhabitants. This one plot of land reflects 70 years of German history from Weimar, the Nazis, the war, the Soviet occupation and reconstruction to the fall of the GDR.
THE CAST – Lars Eidinger, Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Matthes, Michael Maertens & Susanne Wolff
THE TEAM – Volker Schlöndorff (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 118 Minutes
What makes a home? Does property denote belonging? Is the countryside an escape from the travails of the city, or merely a way of putting off the inevitable, the sense of sanctuary and calm an ugly lie for things occurring just over the distant treeline? Veteran Volker Schlöndorff returns to Cannes with his gentle yet emotionally powerful film “Visitation” — the narrative traces multiple generations of Germans who settle on the shores of a lake. From the earliest chapters, where a young girl’s dowry is stripped from her after a dalliance with a local fishmonger, the collision between the beauty of the place and the tragedies that lie just under the surface provides the central metaphors for this multi-decade, multi-family fable.
Based on Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel “Heimsuchung,” which is presented in English with the seemingly innocuous noun “Visitation,” the word also packs within it allusions to other definitions, including “plague,” “disaster,” and “affliction.” It’s these elements that are packed into even the film’s title, and the subtlety of its presentation, particularly for a non-German audience unfamiliar with the social mores and political strife of the 19th through 20th centuries, that gives the film some of its powerful impact. The French title, meanwhile (“Le Bois De Klara”), names that young girl who is abused by her controlling father when her pregnancy is revealed, an original sin that lies dormant but never far away from even the most bucolic of moments.
Martina Gedeck, Lars Eidinger, Susanne Wolff, Ulrich Matthes, Josefin Platt, Stella Denis-Winkler, and Ava Wisbrod are just some of the massive ensemble that bring the stories to life. The central location of partitioned lakeside land sees these many inhabitants come and go, from an architect with ties to the Nazi party who can’t quite make a go under Speer’s regime, to the neighboring Jewish family who craft a modest beach house filled with towels from their materials factory, only to leave behind unsent letters to those already sent off to die in the Polish camps.
The Russian advance provides one of the film’s most startling and impactful moments, while the views and sounds of distant bombing make the setting feel even stranger and more liminal. Other elements are playfully, even comically, interwoven regardless of what cycle of inhabitance is at play, with a taciturn gardener, seemingly never aging past his grey-bearded prime, as tied to the varying timelines as the view of the lake or the waving of the trees.
Reportedly shot at the former summer home of famous émigré Albert Einstein, or at least meant to evoke that space that was designed by a Nazi and housing a Jew forced to flee the land of his ancestors, the building itself is a major character, its walls seemingly witness to the vagaries of time with each occupant leaving their own subtle marks, only falling to ruin when the people stop calling it home. It’s a highly poetic mode of storytelling, and the 87-year-old auteur has a long tradition of crafting such works over his many decades.
So while there’s a clear nostalgic element to the telling, especially with the incorporation of footage from the fall of the Berlin Wall that feels less like newsgathering than the director’s own camera work, there’s still an acute, contemporary bent to this telling. Even in the most sordid of moments, there’s an understanding of humanity, be it in the form of bureaucratic manipulation or simply the modes to ensure survival, that makes each and every decision comprehensible if not laudable. Even the actions of an abusive father or an assaulting soldier are contextualized, not to erase the circumstances, but to provide deeper insight and a closer look at what otherwise too easily could be nihilistically brushed aside.
It may be true that Schlöndorff’s latest may not rise to the power of his Palme d’Or-winning “Tin Drum,” which played here nearly five decades ago. However, it’s still laudable that the man’s gifts for storytelling and eliciting strong performances remain intact, even if it appears he had formal assistance on set, thanks to active collaborators. For a film about memories lost and lives lived, the film may end as a footnote to an otherwise lauded career. Still, “Visitation” is fundamentally a beneficial addition to this auteur’s canon.
