ANSELM (2023) review

produced by: Karsten Brünig and Wim Wenders
directed by: Wim Wenders
rating: not rated
runtime: 93 min.
U.S. release date: October 11, 2023 (limited) and February 2, 2024 (Music Box Theatre, Chicago, IL)

While watching Wim Wender’s latest documentary “Anselm” I had forgotten it was a 3D experience. Not because the 3D wasn’t good, but actually due to the opposite. Most of the time, I felt like the screen had utterly disappeared and it was as if I was peering through an open window. That’s a rare theatrical viewing experience and an impressive 3D achievement. It is indeed a clear and immersive viewing experience, but also an artful and beautiful one as well. Quite fitting considering Wender’s subject is German artist Anselm Keifer.

“Anselm” explores the artwork of the 78-year-old painter/sculptor, who is mostly known for his large-scale installation pieces that are either set up in an outdoor area or housed in a labyrinthian warehouse. Wenders often captures Keifer bicycling around this workspace. That’s how spacious it is. This is where much of his work is made and stored, like a one-man factory (actually one of the locations is a transformed brick factory in Höpfingen, Germany). His outdoor work can primarily be found at La Ribaute within the village of Barjac in the Cévennes in France, where 200 acres of land have been transformed by his exhibitions that have coincided seamlessly with nature for over 30 years.

Wenders captures this outdoor work with a pastoral observance that is accentuated exquisitely by a sublime score from composer Leonard Küßner and the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, with vocal assistance from Brita Poulsen and Fanny Soyer. Küßner’s score enhances the viewing experience since most of the film is saturated by his music rather than talking heads or dialogue. The music is paired eloquently with Franz Lustig’s exquisite 6K 3D cinematography, creating visual poetry, where at times indecipherable whispers can be heard, rambling ethereal chants and verses that seem like they could be ghosts from both the past and the present.

Keifer was born in March 1945 in Donaueschingen, Germany, to the son of a German art teacher, only a few months before the end of World War II. Having grown up surrounded by a war-torn environment of devastation, it’s obvious how and why Keifer has often worked history into his art. It’s been noted that his art has often addressed taboo and controversial issues that many of his contemporaries have steered away from. That being said, Keifer is one of several other German artists who have done what they can to reckon with the horrors committed by their homeland.

In August of 1945, Wenders was also born in Germany. It would be safe to assume the auteur finds a kindred spirit in Keifer, or at the very least a fellow artist to respect and someone he wants others to know about. When “Anselm” premiered last year at Cannes, he told The Hollywood Reporter that, “Anselm was a labor of love and turned out to take seven shooting periods and altogether three years to become a film like nothing I’ve ever done before. I think we stretched the possibilities of 3D into an unknown territory.” The film certainly feels like quite a bit of love and time has gone into it and indeed the end result offers a breathtaking viewing experience.

At times, Wenders incorporates some of Keifer’s own thoughts, such as: “The whole of society was silent then, they all failed to grasp the unimaginable”, which speaks to his reflection on the past. A good amount of time though focuses on how Keifer has incorporated the work of German-language, Romanian-Jewish writer, Paul Celan, into his own art. Wenders establishes that the poet has greatly influenced Keifer over the years, finding Celan’s work involving German history and the Holocaust impacting Keifer’s own impressionistic collage work. His sculptures and paintings are often composed of burnt raw materials, such as rubble and molten steel to evoke the ravages of the war. Many of them are life-size, large enough for Keifer and any viewer to walk through as if stepping through a time portal.

Overall, Wenders takes a unique approach to his subject, making “Anselm” stand out amid other documentaries that revolve around artists over the years. He isn’t concerned with making a biographical documentary, nor is he out to endear viewers to Keifer (who comes across as uber-serious and a bit self-involved) – there is instead simply an observance of the artwork. We follow Keifer’s current endeavors and Wenders also offers a look at how his past offers insight into who the artist has become.

“Anselm” touches on Keifer’s early work as well, providing both an evolution and context of the artist. Wenders indicates Keifer was considered a child prodigy, with one of his early projects “Heroic Figures” showing a conceptual side of the artist, developing a series of photographs in which the artist is seen posing a “Seig Heil” salute at various locations throughout the German landscape. Of course, there are viewers of this work of his that will take what they see at face value, instead of looking for different artistic meanings and intents.

Another way in which Wenders differentiates himself from other artist documentaries can be seen in how he weaves a narrative approach to Keifer’s artwork and life. There are engaging fictionalized scenes that feature iterations of Kiefer – played in his twenties, by Daniel Kiefer (the artist’s son) and as a boy by Anton Wenders (the director’s great-nephew) – that find the younger Keifer exploring the interior and exterior of landscapes. Those moments are open for interpretation. It could be the elder Keifer looking back on his own memories or it could be Wenders way of including what Keifer has shared about his past. Either way, it’s a refreshing way to add something different and new to the documentary.

If you know next to nothing of his work (or, like me, you may have all but forgotten what you learned about him in Art History class years ago), Wender’s film serves as a fascinating gateway to the artist and his work…well, mostly his work. Could there be a more detailed documentary of the life of Anselm Keifer? Sure, but that’s thankfully not the point here.

A final note on the 3D employed here. As mentioned, it’s exquisite with no trace of anything gimmicky about it. I watched “Anselm” during its first weekend at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre, which recently invested in installing a new 3D system. There are high-end glasses that are recycled and cleaned after each screening. I attribute much of the fascination and pleasure I experienced while watching the film to this upgrade and I look forward to the theater’s 3D Film Festival come April.

RATING: ***1/2