Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Talent: Barbara Sukowa, Axel Milberg, Janet McTeer, Julia Jentsch
DVD Release Date: Out now

Jacques Derrida once stated that, despite his curiosity in the sex lives of philosophers, he had no intention of ‘making a porno film about Hegel or Heidegger’. Evidently Margarethe von Trotta has no such intention either. Her version of political philosopher Hannah Arendt’s controversial report on the trial of Adolf Eichmann is an elegant affair, more or less. Yet with a graciously cut flashback scene showing Herr Heidegger ascending to young Arendt’s room, then descending to young Arendt’s knees, this is most likely the closest we will come to such niche erotica for some time. Back on his feet, Heidegger in particular suggested that Aristotle’s biography should be: ‘He was born, he thought, and he died.’ No dictum reveals as starkly the necessary absurdity of a biopic like this. Hannah Arendt praises its focus for virtues its form necessarily disowns. Hannah doesn’t ‘beat her breast about her own forced exile,’ says the character of Mary McCarthy, but through her and several others, Hannah Arendt does. The film cannot give us abstraction, and what’s missing, as Heidegger continued, is pure anecdote.

Words by Kevin Breathnach