Erika

A bittersweet homecoming — emphasis on the bitter — propels Polish filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski’s spare, precise drama “Fatherland,” which takes an episode from the life of Nobel Prize-winning German author Thomas Mann and, with the help of some poetic license, creates a story full of simmering anger and sorrow. Only rarely do the dignified characters allow their emotions to come storming out. When they do, though, the sound seems to reverberate, the tumult of the past ringing in our ears.

Like Pawlikowski’s previous two features, “Ida” and “Cold War,” “Fatherland” is a period piece shot in black and white in a boxy 4:3 aspect ratio so that the frame resembles an old photograph, although his images contain no hint of nostalgia. It’s 1949, and the 70-something Mann (Hanns Zischler) has returned to Germany for the first time since fleeing to America 16 years prior. Accompanying him is Erika (Sandra Hüller), his daughter and fellow writer, who begrudgingly serves as interpreter, personal assistant and driver. In addition, she’ll offer her brutally honest thoughts on the flowery speeches he will deliver while being honored for his artistry.

Quickly, they discover that while the war may be over, the bombed-out buildings remain, as do the lingering resentments within Germany, which is controlled by the United States in the west and the Soviets in the east. Thomas, an outspoken critic of Nazism, leading to his exile, believes that his public appearances can unite the country he loves. The cynical Erika knows better, convinced he’s a PR tool for a nation hoping to refurbish its tarnished reputation.

Drawing inspiration from “The Magician,” Colm Tóibín’s fictionalized 2021 Mann biography, Pawlikowski uses this trip as a jumping-off point, introducing real-life individuals who were not present and inventing a new central dynamic. (In truth, Thomas traveled with his wife, not his daughter.) But those creative liberties merely accentuate Pawlikowski’s narrative and thematic aims, which, as in “Ida” and “Cold War” include pairing an intimate story with the larger rumblings of postwar Europe. Thomas and Erika arrive in a Germany torn apart and the ruptures within their family are nearly as tumultuous.

The film is haunted by the specter of Klaus (August Diehl), Erika’s brother, who is actually the first person we see onscreen. In a masterful unbroken shot, Klaus is on the phone from France with his sister, expressing his bottomless anguish. “I don’t believe in anything anymore,” Klaus, who is also a writer, declares. “I can’t remember the last time I felt something.” He’s talking about the fractured Germany, but his depression speaks to something closer to home too. Concerned, Erika encourages Klaus to join them. He declines, but his absence — and a shocking later revelation — informs so much of their journey, personalizing the sense of disrepair Thomas and Erika experience.

Working with his usual cinematographer Łukasz Żal, Pawlikowski prefers a static camera, leaving plenty of headroom above the characters so that they feel entombed by their surroundings. The effect is especially disconcerting as this father and daughter navigate glad-handers and former Nazi collaborators in West Germany who are anxious to bury the past. But Thomas and Erika are no fools, coolly telling off smiling Hitler sympathizers during a tony reception. There has been no more satisfying slap in cinema this year than the one Erika lands on a smug German actor, leading to a wicked punchline that shouldn’t be spoiled.

Such moments of barbed humor are infrequent in “Fatherland,” but Pawlikowski wields them like grenades, shattering the stifling niceties enveloping Thomas and Erika. The Germany of “Fatherland” is one of contradictions, with Erika uncovering letters sent to Thomas’ hotel that savagely accuse him of betraying his country, despite state officials eager to embrace him as a symbol of the nation’s creative and cultural excellence. In contrast to the gorgeous monochrome visuals, this is a land that stinks of complicity and delusion — of opportunists desperate to scramble onto the right side of history. Pawlikowski has said that he keeps returning to the past in his films because addressing our modern ills directly would be too daunting. But whether in Frankfurt or, later, Weimar — where Soviet officials are as keen to canonize Thomas — this father and daughter aren’t simply driving through Germany but taking a tour across fascism’s long shadow, which still darkens the world.

Both leads are exceptional, with Zischler articulating the great writer’s arrogance and willful denial of the inconvenient truths he wants to ignore. As for Hüller, this is another superb performance in a series of them in recent years. Where Thomas is aloof and proud, Erika is prickly and sardonic, excellent tools for protecting a surprisingly fragile heart. Their journey to Germany will heal neither the nation nor the divisions within this family. You can’t go home again and in the case of the characters in “Fatherland,” maybe you shouldn’t try.

What is pornography? We tend to think of it monolithically, as something created by and for hetero men, reinforcing sexist stereotypes and machismo behavioral codes. For over 20 years, Erika Lust has been fighting against those preconceptions, creating adult content that expands the parameters of pornography while approaching it as something akin to mainstream independent cinema. Her subscription-only website features content that leaps over gender boundaries, and has pulled in fans around the globe.

In her new book “Lust,” the filmmaker makes a convincing case for an ethical, intelligent porn that can expand our ideas about sex and intimacy. I recently chatted with Lust about sex, power and the internet.

✍️ Author Chat

Are we calling it pornography? Adult content? What do you call it?

For me, it is pornography. What I do is pornography because I work with explicit images, but I also work with cinema, and I strive for cinematic vision and craft. I don’t just pick up a camera, film people having sex and put it online. It is a whole creative process. So when I talk about my work, I see myself first as a filmmaker whose subject matter happens to be pornography.

What compelled you to create adult content?

I was born in Sweden, and I became a feminist quite young. I studied political science in college. When I was exploring my sexuality in my late teens and early twenties, I became more and more interested in finding out about our desires and who we are and what we are attracted to. And then I started to watch porn [and] felt horrible watching it. I felt a little bit troubled by the images. Why are all these female characters just there to please the man? It wasn’t about the women, it wasn’t their stories, and that made me feel a bit angry. When I talked to other women about this, they felt the same way. I felt there was something to explore there. Of course at the time, I had no idea I would be doing this for a living.

There are a lot of tired tropes about adult content that you debunk in your book. That the performers come from broken homes and are forced to do things on camera without their consent and so on.

It’s so easy for people to think that in the sex industry there’s going to be exploitation. But my experience is the opposite. Because people I work with dare to talk about sex. The conversation is over the table, not under the table. The people I have met and worked with in this business are intelligent and smart, with a very clear plan of their future. They take care of themselves, their bodies and their sexuality.

In “Lust,” Erika Lust debunks tropes and stereotypes surrounding the production of pornography.

(Jahel Guerra)

How has technology affected how we think about sex?

There’s a lot of sex anxiety going on in our society, and I think that also has a lot to do with technology and how it has taken over our lives. And I’m reading more articles about the intimacy crisis, and the fear that people have of connecting with other people, and young people who are not having sex. Technology has gone wild. It has taken over our lives. People are afraid of other people, of friction, of negotiating boundaries. They don’t know how to explain their own desires so they would rather talk to robots. I think we need to disconnect from technology, and think more deeply and talk to each other — not just about sex, but about everything.

Given the ubiquity of free adult content on the web, how do you compel customers to subscribe to your site?

I think people that subscribe are looking for something completely different, something more elevated, and they understand that that kind of film costs money. I can’t shoot without paying my crew and my staff. Shooting with an Alexa camera is not the same thing as picking up my mobile phone. And then I need crew members who can work with that technology, I need gaffers and electricians, I need to pre-light the set the day before, and so on. The budgets that I’m working with are really budgets for independent films. We have a staff of 45 working with me and my husband.

It’s the last artistic underground, really. I did notice that Bruce LaBruce, a filmmaker whom you mention in your book, has a collection of his films presently being shown on Criterion Channel.

I never think it’s going to become mainstream. My true hope is that we can at least be known as an independent porn culture making quality films that aren’t exploitative. That people understand that it exists, and that it’s an option apart from the mainstream porn websites.

This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Chuck Lorre has written a memoir, “Sitcom,” about his career

(Christopher Patey / For The Times)

How does Bonnie Garmus follow her blockbuster 2022 novel “Lessons in Chemistry”? With “Peck & Peck,” a “whimsical and winning ode to the written word, and send-up of the pretensions of its gatekeepers,” writes Leigh Haber.

Chuck Lorre, one of the most successful and prolific writers and producers in TV history, has written “Sitcom,” a memoir in which he reveals, among other things, his decade-long tenure as a card-carrying Scientologist. Writing the book “was cathartic,” he tells Mary McNamara. “There’s a little bit of therapy going on in this book. I got to say some things out loud that in the past I would have kept hidden because they were embarrassing.”

At a time when it seems like anger and hostility has become the fossil fuel of everyday life, author and conflict expert Priya Parker’s new book “The Art of Fighting” argues for civil and spirited debate as a balm for our troubled times. “As a conflict resolution facilitator for the last 25 years, I can say that healthy community needs healthy conflict,” Parker tells Margaret Wappler.

Finally, Maddie Connors talked to Michael Douglas about his new memoir, “One Helluva Ride,” a book about his life and career. “Your 80s may be a good time to share,” the 82-year-old actor tells Connors. “People interested in movies, we give them a certain insight into the process, and maybe they could learn something. For others, it’s just gossip.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

Formerly a pop-up bookstand, Reverie Bookstand is a brick-and-mortar bookstore on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park.

(Reverie Bookstand)

Located on a busy stretch of Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, Reverie Bookstand is doing its level best to buck the AI tsunami, selling used books created by humans in a variety of subjects. In an email exchange, owner Tim Horner tells us what’s selling in his store.

What prompted you to open the store?

I was driving by and I saw it was for lease. I had been selling books for some years as a scout for other bookstores, and also at flea markets where I would pop up with a ”bookstand.” So it wasn’t a brand new idea; I had always dreamt of it. The owner of the building was a part of a small team that ran a collective DIY venue and gallery called Echo Curio around 12 years ago. It has since shut down, but Echo Curio was a place I came to as a young person back in the day. So the landlord was sympathetic to the cause and the idea of having a bookstore here. So I went for it.

What genres does the store tend to emphasize?

I specialize in poetry, mysticism, occult and out-of-print secondhand books and paper goods. All the books here in the store are used books. So far it hasn’t been difficult to keep the shelves full, I know some spots.

Who are you customers?

The clientele here is diverse. Students, working-class people, artists, local neighborhood families, musicians and people from all walks of life who simply love books and reading. A thing I am grateful for is how kindhearted and empathetic (most) book people are. It gives me a lot of strength and motivation everyday to know that my book-buying addiction is not in vain but is actually going to some strange use in helping connect people with literature.

What’s selling right now?

The things that are selling the most are things California-related and writers from California especially — Joan Didion, John Steinbeck, Octavia Butler.

Why do we still need bookstores when AI can write books for us?

I think bookstores are relevant still because we all need some type of human connection for our well-being, and books encourage that behavior. Whether it’s connecting with a space and people or connecting with authors, a bookstore is a place where you can actually browse for something and be in the moment with other people that are possibly interesting. The gesture alone validates itself in that you’re telling the world. I am open to ideas, things, places, people, and along the way you find a book you didn’t know existed, a nicer copy of something you already have, or a book you’ve been meaning to read but had forgotten about. And until this point there is no tangible way to browse for these things I have online yet and hopefully ever.

Reverie Bookstand is located at 1519 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.