{"id":5689,"date":"2026-08-07T21:07:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5689"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:07:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:07:02","slug":"i-is-another-review-an-impeccable-claes-bang-plays-felix-kersten-massage-therapist-to-heinrich-himmler-and-would-be-nobel-laureate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5689","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I Is Another\u2019 Review: An Impeccable Claes Bang Plays Felix Kersten, Massage Therapist to Heinrich Himmler and Would-Be Nobel Laureate"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n\tA handsomely upholstered psychological thriller with more than a little contemporary resonance, the period drama \u201cI Is Another\u201d should spark heated debate about what constitutes a historical fact as well as the increasingly malleable nature of truth today. German writer-director Felix Randau\u2019s fourth feature centers on the fascinating but now mostly forgotten figure of Felix Kersten (1898\u20131960), a Baltic German massage therapist to SS Reich leader Heinrich Himmler. Played with unctuous authority by the multilingual Danish performer Claes Bang, Kersten claims to have used his influence to obtain the freedom of thousands of concentration camp prisoners, and is obsessed with winning a Nobel Prize. While trying to further propagate his version of history, Kersten meets his match in the fictional journalist Hedda Wohmann (excellent Austrian thesp Valerie Pachner), who questions his self-proclaimed heroism.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5687\">The Best Hilton Hotels in Hawaii:\u00a0From a 22-Acre Waikiki Resort to\u00a0Charming, Boutique Abodes<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tIntimately shot by Austrian DP Sebastian Thaler, the tightly framed action starts on a night train slowly wending its way from Stockholm to Oslo in the autumn of 1952, where the Nobel Committee is due to reveal the winner of its Peace Prize. After ambushing Nobel hopeful Kersten onboard, Wohmann makes multiple attempts to interview him. He, meanwhile, is helpfully carrying notes for his autobiography and official-looking documents to support his story.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe tense encounters between the rhetorically agile Kersten, who demands to be addressed formally as Medical Councilor Kersten, and the stubborn Wohmann thrill as their verbal jousting and cutthroat one-upmanship soon reveal that Wohmann, too, carries a hidden agenda. While Kersten taps his Swedish security connections for information about Wohmann, the intrepid journalist relies on chutzpah and archival detective work.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAs befits his character, Bang plays Kersten as a smart, confident fabulist who lives performatively and is the hero of every story he tells. From his immaculate suits and starched white shirts to his\u00a0<em>sotto voce<\/em>\u00a0asides about his rules for marriage, he is a self-created character whose intent is to charm Wohmann into seeing things his way and printing the legend. But his handsome brow occasionally furrows with irritation when she introduces an inconvenient fact.\u00a0Pachner proves a worthy opponent as the reporter who hopes she can recoup her lost career standing with a scoop about Kersten. With her feline good looks and refusal to be intimidated when he confronts her with past mistakes, she holds her ground, eyes glittering.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBoth Kersten and Wohmann are travelling with their respective spouses, Irmgard and Winfried (Susanne Wuest and Timocin Ziegler), whose strained silences and sudden revelations reveal volumes about life with their more difficult partners. Randau cleverly uses different visuals to show Kersten and his wife\u2019s description of the same incident. Meanwhile, Winfried\u2019s painful account of his time as a soldier, seemingly never before shared with his wife, makes both her and the audience re-evaluate firm notions about good and evil, and what an ordinary man might do to survive an extraordinary situation.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5682\">B\u00e9la Tarr\u2019s Legacy to Be Celebrated at Sarajevo Film Festival<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tIn contrast to the tight spaces of the train, where reflections in mirrors and glass also contribute to the theme that every person contains multitudes, the flashbacks to Kersten\u2019s relationship with Himmler (Martin M\u00fcller) during the war years are also claustrophobically visualized, with the suffocating feeling coming more from his close contact with the SS. In Kersten\u2019s telling, he is always a central player, suggesting, indeed insisting on his ideas to the German commander. He claims credit for bringing Himmler together with Norbert Masur from the Swedish branch of the World Jewish Congress in the final months of the war and places himself in the room where it happened, making important contributions to the discussion.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBefore starting this project, writer-director Randau was approached by French producers who were developing a miniseries on Kersten depicting him as a true hero. But when Randau started his own research, he discovered that Kersten was not the great savior he claimed himself to be, but someone trying to rehabilitate his past because of his ambition to win the Nobel prize.\u00a0Interestingly, Randau is not the only filmmaker to explore Kersten\u2019s murky background and questionable claims. Finnish helmer Arto Koskinen made a similar deep dive which he transformed into the documentary \u201cWho was Felix Kersten?\u201d (1998) and a 12-episode podcast (2019).<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAs Wohmann leads Kersten through the twists and turns of his personal history, \u201cI Is Another\u201d benefits from top-notch tech credits, creating a convincing and attractive period look. Kudos are due to Stephan von Tresckow\u2019s production design and Mara Helml\u2019s covetable costumes. Bernhard Fleischmann\u2019s well-used score and Joana Scrinzi\u2019s precise cutting add tension and pace.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5680\">Variety Toasts Young Hollywood\u2019s Hottest at Cover Bash With Tate McRae, Sombr and Malachi Barton<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Starring Claes Bang, Felix Randau&#8217;s &#8216;I Is Another&#8217; explores the truth behind one man\u2019s claims to have saved thousands from German concentration camps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4423,4443,4444,4445],"class_list":["post-5689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-claes-bang","tag-felix-kersten","tag-felix-randau","tag-i-is-another-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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