Anselm Review: Wim Wenders' 3D Documentary Marvel

Wim Wenders Confronts Art, Immersion, and His Past in 3D Doc Anselm

Since its debut in a feature film in 1922, stereoscopic processing technology has maintained a roller-coaster relationship with the motion picture industry and audiences alike. In the last two decades, 3D releases have been reserved almost exclusively for two kinds of features: ultra-expensive action flicks or animated children’s movies. Think Thor: Love and Thunder or “a cranky ogre riding a fire-breathing dragon.” It’s rare, then, to find the medium present in a quiet documentary about German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer. It’s even rarer, though, to find the technology used in a manner that feels intentional and vital to its film’s storytelling, successfully eluding 3D’s propensity to come across as gimmicky or cheap. Both of these rarities are found in the mesmeric gold mine that is Wim Wenders’ Anselm. Anselm combines the filmmaker’s technical mastery with a deep curiosity for his subject to create an experience that is as thought-provoking as it is immersive.

Shot in 6K-resolution by cinematographer Franz Lustig, Anselm presents a cinematic experience of Anselm Kiefer’s oeuvre, which probes complex themes of human existence, German nationalism, Nazism, poetry, science, mythology, religion, literature and the cyclical nature of history. Filmed over the course of two years, Anselm traces the artist’s path from his native Germany to his current home in France, connecting the stages of his life to the essential places of his career that spans more than five decades.

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Anselm answers a burning question: What happens when a veteran filmmaker embraces the latest movie-making technologies? Well, if you’re Wim Wenders with a 3D 6K camera, the results are mesmerizing. Within the first few seconds, we are immediately transported into Kiefer’s world. This is achieved through a combination of strategic 3D placement and crisp, high-resolution imaging. The depth created through three-dimensional processing creates an overwhelming sense of realism. The images possess such details that they create the illusion that you are viewing them with the naked eye. It’s the first time I have ever truly felt as if I could reach out and touch the objects on a screen. It’s an incredibly immersive experience—and it’s incredibly beautiful. A standout moment happens just two minutes into the film: We’re outside on a still fall morning. The camera floats from a gorgeous wide shot of one of Kiefer’s wedding dress sculptures across to an hilly landscape. As the camera glides away, the sun begins to peek through from the mountains in the distance. The bright orange light, brought to the foreground through the use of 3D processing, feels so real, you almost expect to feel warmth on your skin. It’s subtle, yet divine.

In addition to its technical triumphs, what makes Anselm distinct is its non-traditional approach to documentary filmmaking. It’s important to note that the film’s primary focus is on Kiefer as a creator rather than a private individual. This rejection of the traditional biographical probing results in a documentary completely devoid of formal interviews. There’s no input from art historians. No praise from Kiefer’s contemporaries or loved ones. And there are certainly no sit-down conversations with the artist himself.

Instead, Wenders fills the sonic landscape with readings of poems, like “Todesfuge” by Paul Celan—the inspiration behind Kiefer works such as Margarethe (1981) and Your Golden Hair, Margarethe (1981)—haunting whispers from unknown female speakers, and voiceover by Kiefer. This voiceover, however, is not a narration of any sort. Rather, it’s composed of free-flowing ramblings on a number of topics and curiosities that amuse the painter. The result of this is something much more truthful than what could be uncovered by listening to any talking head. You’ve been allowed a glimpse of what it’s like to be inside Kiefer’s mind and soul for 93 minutes. The seamless flow of spoken thoughts and ideas, mirrored by the smooth, crane-shot visuals, gives the illusion of floating through memories, space and time. We feel Kiefer’s need to create. The work feels organic and, though incredibly intimate, never invasive.

Though Anselm’s primary interest is with its subjects’ creativity, a delicate theme of childhood emerges at the core of the film. Although the artist never explicitly addresses his childhood, Wenders casts his great-nephew, Anton Wenders, to play Kiefer as a young boy. It’s through quiet reimaginings of Kiefer’s childhood adventures and the use of archival footage from post-World War II Germany where we begin to understand the artist’s fixation with his homeland’s dark past. The film repeatedly screens images of young children playing in ruins, just as Kiefer, who was born in 1945 Donaueschingen, Germany, would have done. The archives of the nation’s postwar state are frequently overlaid or cut against footage of rubble and destruction in the artist’s own ateliers. Through images alone—a gorgeous example of Alfred Hitchcock’s pure cinema—Wenders is able to draw a clear line of influence between his subject’s upbringing and the art he creates now as an adult.

These moments that highlight the cyclic nature of time and the importance of Kiefer’s childhood on his present work are incredibly tender, and one cannot help but to acknowledge the filmmaker’s close connection to the subject matter. Wenders was also born in Germany in 1945. Although the director and his subject share uncannily similar upbringings, their reactions to the events of World War II were starkly different. As highlighted in Anselm, Kiefer took a confrontational approach to Nazism, using his art to “hold a mirror up to his nation,” a nation that, according to him, seemed too eager to erase the past. In 1969, the artist created a controversial series, Occupations, which included images of him performing the then-illegal Sieg Heil salute across prominent European locations. Wenders, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more eager to leave Germany and its past behind him.

Wenders did not actively (or at least, publically/artistically) engage in the topic of Germany’s war and postwar history until he returned to Berlin after nearly a decade of living in America to find the city physically and ideologically divided between East and West. He then made his 1987 film Wings of Desire, a film that, like Anselm, favors images of dust, debris and grief-stricken landscapes. “We had two very different attitudes towards this country that we grew up in,” Wenders reflects. “[Kiefer] really faced it and dug deep. And I avoided it. Part of [Anselm], for me, was to get over that by showing his process. Also, acknowledging it and showing how much respect I had for the kind of work that he did, and I did not do.”

That personal history considered, the thematic and visual similarities between Wings of Desire and Anselm may serve to reconcile a man’s regret for misaction—to address the open wounds he wishes he would have tended to sooner. For its historical relevance, its personal connections to both filmmaker and subject, and its immersive nature, Anselm is well worth experiencing—yes, in 3D.

Director: Wim Wenders
Writer: Wim Wenders
Starring: Anselm Kiefer, Daniel Kiefer, Anton Wenders
Release Date: December 8, 2023

Kathy Michelle Chacón is a Gen-Z writer, academic, and filmmaker based in sunny California. When she’s not writing for Paste Magazine, Film Cred, or Kathymichellechacon.com, you can find her eating pupusas, cuddling with her dog Strawberry, or sweating her face off somewhere in the Inland Empire.

Wim Wenders Confronts Art, Immersion, and His Past in 3D Doc Anselm