The Farewell
Release Date:
January 16, 2002
Limited release
On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 17/98 |
Max Braden |
The acting is good all around, and I think it's worth calling out Zhao Shuzhen because she's so natural as Nai Nai. |
This biopic takes a look at one day late in the life of playwright Bertolt Brecht. He is preparing to leave his lakeside home to return to Berlin for the 1956 fall theater season.
Well-known as a womanizer, he is surrounded by both past and current mistresses. We see many emotions surrounding him -- hope, anger, and jealousy. He ponders his final poems and revisions to his works. And if all this wasn't enough, his heart is giving him problems and he's running a fever (he died of a stroke three days after returning to Berlin).
This film does not mention any of his activities that were under the scrutiny of the FBI, but rather concentrates on the turmoil going on around him. It probably won't be of much interest to those people who aren't acquainted with Brecht's life already. (Marty Doskins/BOP)
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