Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
German artist Kurt Barnert has escaped East Germany and now lives in West Germany, but is tormented by his childhood under the Nazis and the GDR regime.
Never Look Away is an ambitious, sweeping epic from Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck that traces art, history, and trauma across decades of German upheaval. The plot is richly constructed, weaving Nazi atrocity, GDR oppression, and the birth of artistic identity into a single coherent arc loosely inspired by Gerhard Richter's life — genuinely exceptional in its narrative scope. Caleb Deschanel's cinematography is luminous and painterly, with compositions that feel like canvases themselves, earning a top mark. Acting is solid across the board, with Tom Schilling and Sebastian Koch delivering committed performances, though not quite transcendent. The film covers familiar German-history territory and its artist-finding-his-voice arc follows recognizable contours, keeping Novelty from the top tier. The ending resolves emotionally and thematically but sprawls somewhat before landing, satisfying without being truly stunning.