Am Abend aller Tage (2016)

Apparently coming straight from a romantic adventure, Philipp Keyser is driven to an appointment after office hours in a Frankfurt skyscraper. At the law firm based there, a group of elderly ladies and gentlemen commissions the art historian, who has no degree, to take on an extraordinary case: find and purchase a lost painting by the (fictional) Expressionist Ludwig Glaeden, titled “The Calling of Salome.” It exists only as a dust imprint on an old living-room photograph and as a blank space in a catalogue. But Philipp reveres Glaeden, and he also needs the money—though, as the nameless spokesperson stresses after writing him a generous first cheque, money seems to matter far less than “the time that the gentlemen and I (…) may not have all that much of left.” The only lead is a rumour that the current owner is Magnus Dutt of Munich, heir to the famous art dealer Eckhart Dutt. There, Philipp poses as a journalist and doctoral student researching Glaeden at a gallery, hoping to gain access to Dutt’s inaccessible estate through his great-niece. Alma is a painter herself, but earns her living in the mundane work of a large commercial laundry, and she rejects Philipp on the spot. Without scruples, Philipp first seduces Sabine, Alma’s young colleague, before Alma herself gradually opens up to him more and more. Alma and Philipp have very different attitudes toward art. Alma’s artworks are made from perishable materials. Philipp cannot understand why she does not want to preserve them. He sees art more as a commodity. It has to be sellable. Surely that is what the artist made it for. By dramatically working on Dutt’s overgrown garden, Philipp finally manages to meet him too. At last, during one of Dutt’s many absences, Philipp discovers the sought-after painting among the vast, completely disordered art collection in Dutt’s cellar. Alma, who by then needs Philipp and his presence—in fact, has bargained for it—had made this possible for him. But when Philipp proposes buying the painting, Dutt proves entirely unapproachable: he fundamentally rejects treating works of art as economic assets or commodities, and therefore rejects the idea of their “ownership.” Art belongs only to itself. It expects to be recognised through the interaction with a viewer who engages with it. If it merely hangs in some rich person’s living room, it loses value—not financial value, but ideal value. He protects these paintings, which came into his hands through his father’s work as an art dealer. He did not choose this. He had to give up a great deal for it. Philipp eventually steals the painting by violently breaking into Dutt’s home and shoving him aggressively aside, causing the old, frail man to fall. The next morning, Alma comes to Philipp’s hotel room and takes the painting back from him. He lets her do it, apparently realising that he himself has turned the painting into looted art, though it had probably never been that before, and that he has more in common with Alma than he thought. So he drives to Frankfurt, returns his commission to the group of wealthy elderly people in the skyscraper, and sets off hiking in the Alps to find himself. Meanwhile, in a scene presented almost as a documentary, it is shown that a Munich art dealer—the one Philipp had used to get in touch with Alma—has drawn the tax authorities’ attention to Dutt. Dutt is arrested by customs officials on his way home from Switzerland with a larger, but legal, sum of money. During a search of his home on suspicion of tax evasion, the art treasures are found and seized. In the end, Philipp returns to Alma’s apartment. Apparently, he has already been living with her for some time. One night, after an attack, Alma confesses to him that she has cancer and is waiting for a donor liver. The next morning, he sees Alma burning the Glaeden painting on the balcony. Dutt, now seriously ill, had sent it to her so that it might help her and Philipp, whom he had meanwhile come to recognise as sincere, in a time of need. But Alma does not want the painting to remain between her and Philipp any longer, having dreamed in a nightmare that she was painting one of her own pictures with blood and liver taken from Philipp’s corpse. Philipp lets her burn it and shows her his love: “and two lovers hold each other in their arms, clinging so tightly as if they really could find support in one another.”