'Charlotte', made in 2021 by French animators Tahir Rana and Éric Warin, belongs to the category of animated films for adults that has been strengthening in recent decades and which already includes some exceptional achievements. The film can be called an animated biopic, whose heroine is Charlotte Salomon, a young German Jewish artist who was murdered at the age of 26 in Auschwitz. However, she left behind a treasure of artistic materials - around a thousand drawings -, a personal diary and letters that remain testimony to an exceptional talent and a tragic destiny. Charlotte Salomon is perhaps not well known in the art world. Excluded from formal studies and working in unconventional environments, she did not have the chance to express her formidable talent in many works whose formats are preserved in the great art museums, and most of her works that have come down to us are preserved in the archives of a foundations associated with the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam. But art history and simply history are catching up with her. Her volume of works is considered today as a forerunner of the comic book format, and as a document it is a graphic diary similar to that of Anne Frank. A German film from the 80s, a novel by a well-known French writer, theater plays, ballets and two musical shows have already been dedicated to him. To these is now added this film.
The film linearly tells the biography of the young woman born in Berlin in a wealthy family where her father and grandfather were famous doctors. As a child, Charlotte expressed in painting the trauma caused by the disappearance of her mother (a series of suicides had marked that branch of the family) and the terror inspired by the persecution to which the family is subjected because of its Jewish origin. She is talented and dreams of becoming an artist, but is expelled from the School of Fine Arts after the Nazis come to power. Refugee in France with her grandparents, she knows a few years of light, friendship and even love, but war and racial persecution will follow her here as well.
There is one very problematic aspect to 'Charlotte'. The screenwriters (Erik Rutherford and David Bezmozgis) chose to change one of the essential aspects of Charlotte's biography, related to the circumstances of her grandfather's death. The motivations were positive, but the effect is the diminishment of the credibility of the entire biographical account. The murder of Charlotte Salomon cannot be justified, nor can the death of any innocent man in the Holocaust or other genocides. But she was not a saint, but a human being, a young woman with dreams and immense talent, but also with dark sides in her character. Turning her into a role model by sweetening her biography was not, in my opinion, necessary.
Graphically, the filmmakers tried a technique similar to that of Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman's excellent 'Loving Vincent' from 2017 by drawing in a style close to that of the film's heroine artist and including scenes depicting the creative process of some among his works. The effect is quite successful, without reaching the sophistication of the film dedicated to Vincent. Of course, that one had a huge investment behind it and Charlotte Salomon was no Van Gogh either. However, the drawn characters have individuality, and the way Charlotte is represented attracts the viewers' empathy. I also thought the dubbing of the voices was excellent. I saw the French version in which the role of Charlotte is spoken by Marion Cotillard, in the English version we hear the voice of Keira Knightley.
Charlotte Salomon titled her graphic journal 'Life? Or Theater?' If we accept the theater metaphor, her life was certainly a tragedy. The vast majority of the six million victims of the Holocaust are anonymous. Only descendants still remember them and sometimes their names are mentioned at commemorations. However, some of the exceptional destinies are known. Working frantically to complete her work, Charlotte Salomon seemed to know that fate would not grant her much time. Wanting to leave a mark, she sent us a shout through her art. This film adds to the effort to defeat oblivion.
The film linearly tells the biography of the young woman born in Berlin in a wealthy family where her father and grandfather were famous doctors. As a child, Charlotte expressed in painting the trauma caused by the disappearance of her mother (a series of suicides had marked that branch of the family) and the terror inspired by the persecution to which the family is subjected because of its Jewish origin. She is talented and dreams of becoming an artist, but is expelled from the School of Fine Arts after the Nazis come to power. Refugee in France with her grandparents, she knows a few years of light, friendship and even love, but war and racial persecution will follow her here as well.
There is one very problematic aspect to 'Charlotte'. The screenwriters (Erik Rutherford and David Bezmozgis) chose to change one of the essential aspects of Charlotte's biography, related to the circumstances of her grandfather's death. The motivations were positive, but the effect is the diminishment of the credibility of the entire biographical account. The murder of Charlotte Salomon cannot be justified, nor can the death of any innocent man in the Holocaust or other genocides. But she was not a saint, but a human being, a young woman with dreams and immense talent, but also with dark sides in her character. Turning her into a role model by sweetening her biography was not, in my opinion, necessary.
Graphically, the filmmakers tried a technique similar to that of Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman's excellent 'Loving Vincent' from 2017 by drawing in a style close to that of the film's heroine artist and including scenes depicting the creative process of some among his works. The effect is quite successful, without reaching the sophistication of the film dedicated to Vincent. Of course, that one had a huge investment behind it and Charlotte Salomon was no Van Gogh either. However, the drawn characters have individuality, and the way Charlotte is represented attracts the viewers' empathy. I also thought the dubbing of the voices was excellent. I saw the French version in which the role of Charlotte is spoken by Marion Cotillard, in the English version we hear the voice of Keira Knightley.
Charlotte Salomon titled her graphic journal 'Life? Or Theater?' If we accept the theater metaphor, her life was certainly a tragedy. The vast majority of the six million victims of the Holocaust are anonymous. Only descendants still remember them and sometimes their names are mentioned at commemorations. However, some of the exceptional destinies are known. Working frantically to complete her work, Charlotte Salomon seemed to know that fate would not grant her much time. Wanting to leave a mark, she sent us a shout through her art. This film adds to the effort to defeat oblivion.
