‘Charlotte’ Review: An Affecting But Conventional Portrait of an Artist Whose Work Survived the Holocaust
variety.comDennis Harvey Film CriticFew victims of the Holocaust left behind such a methodical and memorable record of their life as Charlotte Salomon, a native Berliner who died in Auschwitz at age 26.
As if anticipating that premature end, she’d spent much of the preceding two years painting about a thousand gouaches composing the illustrated autobiography “Life?
Or Theater?,” which fortunately survived the war. Now permanently exhibited at a museum in Amsterdam, they’ve generated a number of works in other media, including an opera, stage plays, a ballet, a novel, a 1981 Dutch dramatic feature, and several documentaries.“Charlotte” is likely to introduce Salomon’s story to a larger audience by virtue of its appeal to animation fans, plus the lure of a starry voice cast led by Keira Knightley. (Marion Cotillard performs the title role in a forthcoming French-language version.) Audiences who responded to recent awards magnet “Flee’s” style of hard-hitting, fact-based narrative in cartoon form will find some similar rewards in this collaboration between directors Eric Warin (“Leap!”) and Tahir Rana (“Angry Birds: Summer Madness”).
What might have seemed a familiar if sad drama in live-action form benefits from this relative novelty of presentation, which lends a certain universality, as well as heightened viewer access, to Salomon’s story.
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