Abschied - Brechts letzter Sommer

Full of fine performances, led by Josef Bierbichler as Brecht and Monica Bleibtreu as Helene Weigel, his wife. Taken on its own terms, The Farewell makes for rewarding viewing.

Marvelously grizzled and tender, Josef Bierbichler's Brecht wheezes and grumbles through it all.

Edward Klosinski's staid cinematography lends the film a feeling of late summer languor, a deceptive calm before a terrible storm. The spare, evocative piano soundtrack is by John Cale.

As a sketch of the twilight of a great artist, The Farewell has merit, but the sketch would be better used as the background to a mural.

Extremely well acted. But as frequently as The Farewell touches on politics, it is essentially an excoriating (and sometimes grimly amusing) domestic drama of a latter-day king and his concubines.

A sad, almost morbid -- and cinematically inert -- eulogy to a complex man whose own genius was dampened by arrogance and politics.