CHRIS FREMANTLE

At Glasgow Film Theatre.

Wenders’ ‘Anselm’ is a very good equivalent of an exhibition catalogue for Kiefer’s installation in the Doge’s Palace, Venice 2022. All the background, the development through two versions of a younger Kiefer.

‘Anselm’ is more biographical than Sophie Fiennes’ ‘Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow’. That film as I remember it is more focused on the Studio at Barjac (discussed here Aesthetics of Uncivilisation). Wenders’ is more interested in what it is to be German.

‘Anselm’ discusses the relationship with Nazism and Heidegger (spoiler Wenders’ seems to think Heidegger was silent on Nazism, which he wasn’t, but Kiefer’s work, in particular a book featuring Heidegger’s brain succumbing to cancer, is totally clear… the last pages are all black…).

The question of what you would do as a German in 1930 or 1939 was left hanging. Putting on your Dad’s uniform and going places acting it out salutes is reopening the wound.