Beuys

Veiel’s refreshingly open-ended approach invites you to find your own answers.

Beuys isn’t a film that lays out, in simple, clear terms, what he and his work are about. But Veiel does manage to refresh our memories of Beuys, and let the man — in his own (subtitled) words, re-make the case that art is “a blow against the enemy,” a revolution.

Even if you don’t need Beuys justified or explained to you, the movie is an exhilarating portrait of a unique truth-teller.

The unconventional Joseph Beuys, one of the pillars of the modern art movement, gets an unconventional tribute in Beuys, a zigzagging documentary that is both illuminating and opaque.

Andres Veiel's documentary Beuys, plays like a fan's flip book divorced from meaningful resonance.

So vague is the picture about the meaning of the artworks it presents that they proved to be of little interest to me, until I researched them afterward. Far more compelling is Beuys himself, with his signature hat, haunted gaze and outspoken belief that art can be a vehicle for communication.

The film fails to seriously address Joseph Beuys voluntarily joining the Hitler Youth and serving with the Luftwaffe.