For years now, one of the great mysteries in covering the film beat has been why so many viewers feel that an opening title “based on a true story” (or “inspired by real events”) somehow validates a movie, makes it worth the increasingly expensive price of admission, and/or distinguishes it from mere “fiction” (even if the work in question is an openly imaginary take on actual events or personages). Maybe a sizable segment of our population trusts creative vision only when it serves pragmatic goals, preferring “just the facts” (however “facts” are defined) to anything that even suggests art, as if art were the same thing as artifice, or, God forbid, requires a little heavy lifting. Regardless, Never Look Away, the latest drama by German writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others), will be a challenge for viewers who prefer i’s dotted and t’s crossed, because it is, and yet isn’t, about one of the world’s foremost enigmatic living painters, Gerhard Richter.
If only von Donnersmarck had been more interested in depicting the growth of an artist as an intellectual. Richter, in Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting—Writings and Interviews, 1962-1993, is quoted thus:
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. In German with subtitles. R, 189 min.
