The Farewell
- Josef Bichler beer: Bertolt Brecht
- Monica Bleibtreu: Helene Weigel
- Jeanette Hain: Käthe Reichel
- Elfriede Irrall: Elisabeth Hauptmann
- Margit Rogall: Ruth Berlau
- Rena Zednikowa: Iseult Kilian
- Birgit Minichmayr: Barbara Brecht
- Tilman Gunther: Officer of the State Security
- Paul Herwig: Manfred Wekwerth
- Claudius Freyer: Peter Palitzsch
- Finzi: Wolfgang Harich
Farewell. Brecht's Last Summer is a German movie from 2000.
Action
The film is set in the summer of 1956 in East Germany. Bertolt Brecht is spending this summer in his summer house in Brandenburg in the village Buckow. It is the last vacation day before Brecht returned must return to Berlin to prepare for the new theater season of the Berliner Ensemble. In his summer house all the important women have come together from his life: his wife Helene Weigel and their daughter Barbara, the former mistress Ruth Berlau and his current mistress Kathe Reichel.
Then there's the young couple Iseult Kilian and Wolfgang Harich. Iseult Kilian, too, is not immune to the approaches of the theater patriarch. The garden is bordered by a small lake, there is swum. The group chatting, eating and drinking, philosophizing about art, politics and the meaning of life. This is observed by the state security who wants to imprison government critics Wolfgang Harich. Helene Weigel may deter them.
Over everything is the melancholy of farewell. Brecht died four days later at his home in Berlin.
Background
The film was shot in summer 1999 in the Polish city Szczecinek. The world premiere of the film took place during the International Film Festival of Cannes 2000 within the section Un Certain Regard on May 14, 2000. In the German cinema, the film came on 14 September 2000.
Reviews
" Jan Schütte had to let you play the Break the downright ingenious idea, Sepp Bierbichler in the cast. At first glance it looks to be made of solid, his physical presence is stronger than the intellectual: But just so that the inconsistency of this man even more serious, lets his illness always look like him a little conceited and airs way - and makes it around easier, Brecht's health to ignore. Beer Bichler optical contrast the film preserves also before that imitation effect, biopics ' subliminally always makes so many a little for curiosity. "
" A supported by an outstanding lead actor state description with theatrical dialogues that ultimately convinced neither a poet nor as portrait study of lifelong love. "