“Never Look Away”, Film from the Director of “The Lives of Others”
(RollingStone review)
Just nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign-Language Film and for the extraordinary cinematography of Caleb Deschanel, Never Look Away concerns itself with love and war and the limitless reach of art.
It isn’t possible to look away from this imposing film for long. Maybe to check the time―it does run for over three hours―or to block out a harrowing moment, but it has a commanding and sensual beauty that isn’t around much at the moment. Top marks to the cinematographer Caleb Deschanel. And like writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s first film, The Lives of Others, it has something serious it wants to say. (via)
Ulrich Mühe played Wiesler.
Wiesler is a fascinating character. His face is a mask, trained by his life to reflect no emotion. Sometimes not even his eyes move. As played in Muehe’s performance of infinite subtlety, he watches Dreyman as a cat awaits a mouse. And he begins to internalize their lives — easy, because he has no life of his own, no lover, no hobby, no distraction from his single-minded job.