Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2010) Reviews

Anselm Kiefer is a German artist who began earning an international reputation for his paintings, which combined photographic realism with impressionistic abstraction and used the juxtaposition of images to form an unapologetic commentary on Germany's history and failings. In 1993, Kiefer relocated from Germany to France, and in 2000 he bought an abandoned silk processing plant; there, Kiefer set up new facilities to create massive installations that employed both large-scale paintings, huge sculptures, objects found at refuse sites, and materials such as dirt and ash to create complex artificial environments. Filmmaker Sophie Fiennes allows Kiefer and his work to speak for themselves in the documentary Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, in which Kiefer talks about his life and work while Fiennes and her crew follow as the artist creates one of his installations, big enough that a team of assistants with heavy equipment must assemble the pieces under his direction. Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow was an official selection at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi