‘Fatherland’ Review: Thomas Mann and His Daughter Travel Across Germany in 1949 in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Meticulous Time Machine of a Drama

The matter-of-fact seduction of Pawlikowski’s filmmaking lies in how he stages everything with a coolly objective authenticity. In "Fatherland," he lends this historical moment a time-machine quality, so that we feel we’re right there, in Germany in 1949, seeing the sands of history shift. Pawlikowski is ruminating on moral choice, and he’s also ruminating on God.