Life? or Theatre? (2012)

Directed by: Frans Weisz | 84 minutes | documentary

In his first documentary, Dutch director Frans Weisz goes back to his feature film from 1981, in which the life of Charlotte Salomon is revealed. Salomon painted and wrote her life story on more than seven hundred sheets, and gave it the title ‘Leben? or Theater? A single game’. Not long after completion, she was deported to Auschwitz, where she died in 1943. After the war her work became very well known, especially in the Netherlands, with exhibitions in the Stedelijk Museum. On the eve of the premiere of Weisz’s feature film ‘Charlotte’, in 1981, the makers of Salomon’s stepmother received a previously unpublished letter from the artist requesting that it never be published. The letter recounted the circumstances in which her work had come about, with a shocking outcome.

The documentary ‘Life? or Theatre?’ Decades later, takes this letter as a guideline and delves into the life of the Jewish woman through her work, the feature film and interviews with acquaintances of her and her work. Not only does Salomon’s life become clear, but also the circumstances and the reason why she created her greatest work. As a film adaptation of both her life and painted diary, documentary, fiction and visual art alternate while the camera searches for the truth through the silver screen.

The fact that Weisz never made a documentary before speaks to his advantage here. He approaches the genre like a feature film, and so gradually but powerfully works towards a denouement, in a special narrative film. It is noticeable in everything; camera movements, music, editing techniques and the story structure, which reads almost like a biopic. The director – and co-writer at the same time – knows how to use his inexperience in the documentary to his advantage, and made a penetrating and special work. Every second of film is an expression of love to Charlotte Salomon, and all the image compositions show similarities with her work. A beautiful ode to the work of a painter who died too early.