Thomas Mann returns to his ‘Fatherland’ in this practically flawless film

Sandra Hüller plays Erika and Hanns Zischler is Thomas Mann in Fatherland. Mubi

Mubi

Artists are notoriously self-important, but a handful carry themselves as if they were the Matterhorn — stony, daunting, towering over the concerns of ordinary mortals. One of these was the majestic German writer Thomas Mann. After the teenage Susan Sontag paid him a reverential visit in the late ’40s, she wrote in her diary, “I interrogated God this evening” — although,