Charlotte (1981)

Directed by: Frans Weisz | 96 minutes | biography, drama, war | Actors: Birgit Doll, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Brigitte Horney, Max Croiset, Peter Capell, Derek Jacobi, Buddy Elias, Peter Faber, Eric Vaessen, Maria Machado, Shireen Strooker, Lous Hensen, Yoka Berretty, Patricia Hodge, Irene Jarosch, Leonard Frank, Shaun Lawton, Ton Lensink, Johanna Sophia, Harke de Roos

More than twenty years before director Frans Weisz made his documentary ‘Leven? Or Theatre?’ already made the life of the Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon in a feature film simply titled ‘Charlotte’. While the documentary mainly depicted the painter’s life’s work, ‘Charlotte’ focuses on the life of the young woman.

In early 1939, Jewish Charlotte Salomon fled her hometown of Berlin under Nazi pressure to live with her grandparents in the south of France. She doesn’t know if she will ever see her father, stepmother or her beloved Daberlohn again. Once she has arrived at her grandparents’ home, World War II breaks out, after which she begins the grand painting ‘Leben? Or Theater? Ein Singespiel’ to unite her history and that of her family in a work of art from which all her courage, thoughts, ideas and decisions speak.

Based on the artwork, Weisz takes the time for long flashbacks, in which Charlotte’s difficult relationship with Daberlohn becomes clear. From the opening scene, in which we see Daberlohn (Derek Jacobi) saying goodbye to Charlotte (Birgit Doll) at the Berlin station with both arms raised – an image that will stay with you for a long time – the man with great ideas about music is always represented, by having so enchanted Charlotte that she looks out for him at all times.

With occasionally brilliant cinematography, Weisz sketches a sensitive portrait of the Jewish artist, but also a film that seems incomplete without the documentary made much later. Giving together ‘Life? or Theatre?’ and ‘Charlotte’ such a broad picture of Charlotte Salomon and her life’s work, that both films only feel like a separate half of a duo. The dialogues recorded later are not always strong with Birgit Doll, but her mysterious look makes up for a lot, and the love for her is not only evident from the eyes of Derek Jacobi, but also from the direction by Weisz. He knows how to portray the artist as both a great power and an example of humanity, and that is a great merit.