Never Look Away - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Never Look Away

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
There are very few times that I have been so incredibly captivated by a film that I lost track of time completely. I don’t mean I look up and say “wow, 45 minutes have gone by”, but rather completely losing track of time until you look up and realize the credits are rolling, your soda has long since gotten warm, and that you just watched a 3 hour and 10 minute film without a single break of concentration. Never Look Away is that rare film that is both incredibly slow, but so mesmerizing, so intricately detailed that you can’t help but feeling that it goes by in mere seconds. Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmark came onto the scene some years ago with his feature film debut with The Lives of Others, a film that was critically a success, but kind of a niche film for the man. His second film was the reason I was skeptical of Never Look Away. The infamously mediocre The Tourist with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. It was so mediocre and a change away from The Lives of Others in it’s attempt at making a blockbuster that I was truly hesitant to see a third film from the director. However, fears laid aside, Never Look Away is a breathtaking masterpiece that follows the lives of two men over the course of 30+ years starting during the terrible tragedies of the 2nd World War.

The film opens up with a famous art show in Nazi Germany during 1937. An art show that was designed as a German propaganda show to show the “problems” of modern art. Our young protagonist Kurt Barnert is escorted there by his young aunt Elisabeth (Saskia Rosendahl), a gorgeous young woman of 20 or so who takes young Kurt to show him the true art of the world (as she doesn’t subscribe to the harsh criticisms of the Nazi party). However, this reverie and joy in art is soon brought to a standstill when Elisabeth is found nude smashing an ashtray over her heard after losing touch with reality over a piano note. Taken to Dr. Carl Seeband (Sebastian Koch) she is diagnosed with schizophrenia and “youthful delusion”, resulting in her being instituionalized.

However, Dr. Seeband has been given a more insidious order from the head of the German medical field. It’s the height of the war and the Fuhrer has deemed that the “lesser” humans in the world have a lesser status on the totem pole, and with German hospitals filling up with German soldiers there is limited care to go around. Being that those soldiers were the backbone of the army, the doctors were all tasked with deciding who lived and who died in Hitler’s new world order. Thus those with mental issues, physical deformities, and other “imperfections” were deemed expendable and rounded up to be gassed along with the Jews and several other classes of people. With Elisabeth’s condition she is rounded up as well and snuffed out without anyone in her family even knowing what happens.

As the war comes to an end, Dr. Seeband and Kurt go down completely separate paths. Dr. Seeband escapes persecution as a war criminal when he’s captured by Russian forces and put into imprisonment, only to escape being tried for war crimes thanks to saving the life of a Russian Major’s wife and daughter during childbirth. Continuing his life as a free man, Dr. Seeband still practices as a wealthy doctor, but continues the prejudices and superiority complexes of his Aryan masters, becoming obsessed with perfection. Years later he’s annoyed when his daughter Ellie (Paula Beer) comes home with a new boyfriend. A boyfriend with a slight imperfection in his facial structure, and is SURE to mess up his pure genetic line. This boy is nothing more than a simple art student named……...Kurt Barnet.

Never Look Away is a very spread out, very sectionalized, and very intoxicating film. It follows the lives of two separate people from the height of WWII in Germany. One one hand we have the Dr. who doesn’t want to follow the orders that his commanders have given him, only to adopt their ideals fully. Then there’s the young boy who watches his auntie taken away to an institution, only to have that haunting memory follow him throughout his entire art career. While Dr. Seeband is one of the major players at the beginning of the film, his “journey” is less of a journey, and more of an aging process. He doesn’t develop, he doesn’t change (which is actually the point), and he soon becomes an after thought to the true protagonist, which is Kurt and his growth over the course of 31 years. There’s a scene in the last 20 minutes of the film that brings everything together (being that neither Kurt nor Dr. Seeband know their connection) where Dr. Seeband walks in to see Kurt’s painting of his aunt, and watching the sheer reality and terror rush straight to his face. I was actually really worried that they were going to make this a big dramatic moment, with Kurt finally realizing WHO Dr. Seeband is, and Dr. Seeband coming face to face with the family of the very first woman he had sent to her death. In some ways it would have been satisfying, but it’s a cheap dramatic moment that would have felt contrived. Instead they allow the viewer to be to the only one “in one it” if you know what I mean, having Kurt and Dr. Seeband never knowing just how close the two were really intertwined. It’s an exceptionally powerful scene, and one that’s elevated dramatically by leaving out the melodrama.

Never Look Back is tonally all over the place, with different sections of the film covering different times, and feeling like “stories within a story”. Each one of these has it’s own tone and pacing, separating the film into little subsections like an orange. That being said, the film’s large ideas lace the little sections together into one big tapestry, allowing the more comedic elements to lighten up the crushing weight of the painful dramatic points, and finishing on a high note with one of the most beautifully artistic and realistic endings that could have ever been hoped for. Much like art is, Never Look Back will affect people in different manners. It’s a love story. It’s a war movie. It’s an artist’s journey to the top, and it’s a wistful look back on life. Whichever way it strikes you, Never Look Back is the foreign language movie of the year that should have beaten out Roma.




Rating:

Rated R for graphic nudity, sexuality and brief violent images




Video:

I was actually shocked to find out that Never Look Away was shot on Arri Alexa digital cameras instead of film stock. The movie looks so incredibly filmic and textured that I was SURE that we were looking at high end 35mm or 65mm film, but according to several sources cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and von Donnersmark WANTED to use film but couldn’t as the processing and costs would have been too high. They even scoped out a processing facility and almost bit the bullet, but instead chose to shoot digitally and doctor it to look more filmic than your average digital movie.

The Blu-ray itself looks fantastic, with some heavy post work editing that adds in a faux film grain layer (which is one of the defining characteristics of the transfer), as well as some rather interesting color grading moments that break up the look of the different sections. The opening shots of the movie are more honey colored and neutral with earth tones thrown in, while “night time” shots are covered with a heavy teal colored grading meant to simulate faux night. As the film progresses it gets more neutral, but amber and gold highlights follow Kurt as he goes to art school, and splashes of that same greenish teal follow him as well. Facial details are clean and immaculately rendered, while blacks are deep and inky with only the teal colored “night time” shots looking a bit strange (which is supposedly an artistic choice vs. an artifact). The neutral look of the film is highlighted with splashes of primary colors, such as the armbands of the Nazi’s, or the bright green and golds of a wheat field waving in the wind. It’s a great transfer and one that is just about near perfection. I think this is the first time that I’ve viewed one of Sony’s MOD titles (Manufactured On Demand), and it looks every bit as perfect as they’re known for in their regular lines.







Audio:

The 5.1 German DTS-HD MA track is very much focused on the dialog and various vocal effects throughout the film, but it is not such a front heavy affair as to be a 3.1 experience. The vocals and dialog are crisp and well defined up front, and completely exemplary in every way, but the haunting and melodic score just flows through the rest of the speakers with soft ease. There are several high profile moments where the hustle and bustle of the city bleeds through in the surrounds, as does some bombing scenes, and the hubbub of college art classroom. It’s a wonderfully gentle track, but done to absolute perfection and it is that much more than just a simply dialog heavy film. The 5.1 mix is evenly balanced, and gives way from the front heavy moments into gentle ambient noises that don’t really stand out, but are ever present if you just listen to them.





Extras:

• Q&A with writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
• Trailers

Final Score:
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Never Look Away is an incredible film with top rate performances all around. Everyone does their job incredibly well, but Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, and Saskia Rosendahl really steal the show in ever way. That opening 34 minute bit with her and Sebastian is absolutely flawless, and the single most powerful moment in the entire movie excepting for the moment where Dr. Koch is face to face with her in photograph form some 30 years later. The movie is rough, raw, and feels like a younger film maker in terms of Florian’s directorial style (which is not a negative, but actually a positive). The movie is given a near flawless treatment on Blu-ray, with the only disappointing thing in the entire package is the lack of extras on the disc. Certainly a must watch in my opinion.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, Paula Beer, Saskia Rosendahl, Oliver Masucci, Hanno Koffler, Cai Cohrs, Evgeniy Sidkhin
Directed by: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Written by: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: Geman: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DVS
Subtitles: English, English SDH
Studio: Sony
Rated: R
Runtime: 189 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: May 14th, 2019

Recommendation: Must Watch

 

[Asere]

Thank you for the review. I will have to check it out.

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review as well. I never heard of this but after reading the review, I will check it out as well.