Käthe Kollwitz: Images of a Life

East German filmmaker Ralf Kirsten's 1986 narrative feature about the life of artist Käthe Kollwitz is here presented in a crisp new 2K restoration that could help bring greater appreciation to this long-underrated work. The story finds Kollwitz (Jutta Wachowiak) in midlife, her artistic fame already secure when her youngest son Peter volunteers to join the German army in World War I. Peter is killed in battle two weeks after his enlistment, which causes Kollwitz to sink into a deep depression. While her political preferences were already leaning towards the left, Kollwitz's son's death gives her a new commitment to radical pacifism and Communism—and her artwork boldly questions the emotional toll that war levies on both combatants and their loved ones. But the rise of the Nazi government would also signal an aggressive state-sanctioned effort to erase Kollwitz's presence from the German arts scene. Kirsten tapped into Kollwitz's unpublished letters and diaries to create this powerful profile, and Wachowiak effectively displays a subtle balance of artistic integrity and emotional pain. Extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette, a text interview with Kirsten, and an essay on Kollwitz's importance to German art. Highly recommended. (P. Hall)