Film Review: Charlotte

Everyone knows about Anne Frank, the 13-year-old whose diary told the world about how she and her family hid from the Nazis in their “secret annex” in the Netherlands for years – until they were discovered.

But not many know about Charlotte Salomon, the only child of a haute-bourgeois German Jewish family, who came of age in Berlin on the eve of World War II.

Charlotte was not a writer like Anne, but a budding young artist who loved drawing more than reading or even going to school. 

Now a new, animated film tells her story in “Charlotte.”  You read that right: this film is animated, and Charlotte is voiced by Keira Knightley.

“Charlotte” mostly covers her teen years living in Berlin with doctor father Albert (Eddie Marsan) and opera-singer stepmother Paula (Helen McCrory). It ends a decade later, when she and her husband Alexander (Sam Clafin) are rounded up by the Gestapo.

Charlotte comes across as a typical, even charming young girl with an inborn need to draw. Her family was a strange and tormented one, and no one in her family seemed to value her work, but that didn’t stop her. She even applied to a local art school – and got accepted, until they found out she was a Jew.

When the Nazis came for Charlotte’s father (to return in ill health later), the family decided to send Charlotte to the Côte d’Azur home of a rich American expat (Sophie Okonedo), where her grandparents were living. Here she meets Alexander Nagler (Sam Claflin), who will become her husband. But soon it becomes clear that this lovely spot won’t be safe for Jews either.

Meanwhile, she produced a sizable collection. Her images are Expressionist and seemingly somewhat elementary, but they often pack  unexpected emotional power.

Her style was unusual: she painted in gouache, using opaque pigments ground in water and thickened with a gluelike substance. It’s like watercolor, only more opaque, described as “essentially acrylic paint with a matte finish.”

By the time she was killed in 1943 at the hands of the Nazis at Auschwitz, she was 26 and had produced 769 gouaches. She named the group “Leben? oder Theater?” (Life? or Theater?). The collection was donated by her family to the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam after her death.

The film is less dramatic than it might be, and seems a bit more cheerful than warranted, given the circumstances. Still, Charlotte is an intriguing character, and her art is surprisingly affecting. 

“Charlotte” isn’t a perfect film, but the story was fascinating enough to keep me involved throughout.