Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe

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Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe
Film poster
Directed by	Maria Schrader
Written by	Maria Schrader Jan Schomburg
Starring	Josef Hader Barbara Sukowa
Release date	2 June 2016
Running time	106 minutes
Countries	Austria Germany France
Language	German
Box office	$640,893[1]

Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (German: Vor der Morgenröte) is a 2016 internationally co-produced drama film directed and co-written by Maria Schrader.^[2] It was listed as one of eight films that could be the German submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but it was not selected.^[3] However, it was later chosen as the Austrian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.^[4][5]

Cast

• Josef Hader as Stefan Zweig
• Aenne Schwarz as Lotte Zweig
• Barbara Sukowa as Friderike Zweig
• Tómas Lemarquis as Lefèvre
• Lenn Kudrjawizki as Samuel Malamud
• Charly Hübner as Emil Ludwig
• Nahuel Pérez Biscayart as Vitor D'Almeida
• Harvey Friedman as Friedman
• Valerie Pachner as Alix Störk
• Matthias Brandt as Ernst Feder
• Ivan Shvedoff as Halpern Leivick
• Daniel Puente Encina as Sadler

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10.^[6] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average rating of 75 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[7]

See also

• List of submissions to the 89th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Austrian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

References

1.  "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
2.  Hopewell, John (3 August 2016). "Films Distribution Rolls Out Pre-Sales on 'Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe'". Variety. Penske Business Media. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
3.  Roxborough, Scott (3 August 2016). "'Toni Erdmann,' 'Fritz Bauer' Among German Oscar Hopefuls". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
4.  "Österreich schickt "Vor der Morgenröte" ins Rennen um Auslandsoscar". Der Standard. STANDARD Verlagsgesellschaft. 6 September 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
5.  Roxborough, Scott (6 September 2016). "Oscars: Austria Selects 'Stefan Zweig' for Foreign-Language Category". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved 6 September 2016.
6.  "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (2017)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
7.  "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 12 July 2018.

External links

• Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe at IMDb

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Review of the film "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe" (2016

By Yasser Medina
On January 22, 2024
No comment


Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europeis a film in which Maria Schrader follows the common rites of biographical drama to capture Stefan Zweig's final years during World War II, when he was a political exile traveling the world before finally settling in the city of Petrópolis, Brazil. 

Its start is more or less interesting, as it intimately portrays the Austrian writer's final days, with an authentic performance by Josef Hader, but I fear that at its dramatic core, there's a lack of vigor that is prolonged by the superfluous dialogue in the jungle and in closed rooms, where the director refuses to delve into the psychology of one of the most renowned writers of the 20th century, opting instead to place him on a sanitized surface where nothing substantial ever happens that would draw me into the routine existence of the characters. 

The plot is set in 1941 and portrays Stefan Zweig as an intellectual who goes into exile in Brazil to escape the war and the persecution of Jews organized by the Nazis' Black Book. There, he enjoys an enormous reputation as a writer and serves as a social activist alongside his wife, spreading the word about the humanitarian crisis erupting in Europe as a result of megalomaniacal dictators. Initially, I'm drawn to the routine of his activities, starting with the scenes in which the famous writer converses with his adoring Brazilian guests and other exiled colleagues about the crimes being committed during the European conflagration. However, after the first hour, I find myself trapped in an apathy that extends, incidentally, through the futile way in which Schrader reduces the protagonist's actions to closed-door discussions about personal conflicts in two periods, separated by spatiotemporal episodes, between New York and Petrópolis. The Austrian writer's desperation is maintained in a repetitive setting, divorced from any trace of emotion in that narrative structure that mimics the pages of a book to compensate for obviousness, in which a few ideas are presented in political discussions, but which never manage to complement the whole with any degree of substance or dramatic pulse. 

The climax in which Zweig and his wife Lotte are found dead from an overdose of barbiturates leaves me neither cold nor warm. I am alien to his sensibilities of supposedly auteur cinema. Everything seems too transparent when he uses Zweig's anguish to communicate his basic discourse on the sociopolitical condition of a depressed immigrant who possesses no nationality and wanders like a nomad through different places where he struggles to adapt, in a strange metaphor that speaks more about the present than the past. Josef Hader's performance, at least,offers a small shred of credibility when he uses his expressive register to evoke Zweig's silences, serene gaze, and distinguished way of speaking, even though the script strips away his inner psychology to show only his exterior, like a statue in a square. And we also appreciate the atmospheres that accentuate the characters' moods in two contrasting settings: the cold of New York and the warmth of Brazil. The rest, within its range of weaknesses, seems like the result of an unpublished sentence left in ellipses.




Technical sheet
Original title: Stefan Zweig Farewell to Europe (Vor der Morgenröte)
Year: 2016
Duration: 1 hr. 46 min.
Country: Austria
Director: Maria Schrader
Screenplay: Maria Schrader, Jan Schomburg
Music: Tobias Wagner
Photography: Wolfgang Thaler
Cast: Josef Hader, Aenne Schwarz, Tómas Lemarquis, Barbara Sukowa
Rating: 5/10

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