Mr. Monsaingeon is an elegant and savvy filmmaker with an eye for detail and an ear for narrative continuity. It was an inspired stroke to coax Richter, with whom he maintained a friendship over many years, to narrate this autobiography from diaries he meticulously maintained since the early 1970s. Hardly a publicity hound, preternaturally modest and camera shy, Richter at first resisted Monsaingeon's determined entreaty to document his life. Interspersed with spontaneous but thoughtful responses to Mr Monsaingeon's probing off-camera questions, Richter takes us on a journey through a life of extraordinary richesse and privilege, though not one without its share of comedies and tragedies. Monsaingeon evokes something of the grayness and uncertainty of memory itself by invoking distance through the use of black and white and sepia-colored footage.
Color is used only occasionally to heighten the effect.
The archival footage Mr Monsaingeon has unearthed is astonishing. If the film had been devoted solely to these clips, Richter fans would have been more than satisfied. Wisely, he didn't stop there. As he tells us in the liner notes, and without exaggeration, what distinguishes his film is his rejection of conventional documentary devices. The director gleefully jettisons longwinded testimonies by friends and colleagues, and never relies exclusively on off-camera commentary by his subject.