Grant Gee's minimalist film essay about the German writer W G Sebald, who lived and worked in Britain but wrote in his native language, is set largely in Suffolk, where he walked the countryside and thought his thoughts, thus producing his most famous book The Rings of Saturn. Those who don't know his work will be as intrigued by the film as those who do, since many of those he knew or who recognise his talent provide a commentary - among them Christopher MacLehose (his first publisher), poet Andrew Motion and Iain Sinclair - as we traverse the journeys he made before his death in 2001. Occasionally Sebald's own voice is also heard.
Gee, who made the award-winning Joy Division, conducts his quiet study with considerable skill, refusing to answer too many questions about this complicated and often pessimistic figure but giving us copious clues as to why he was regarded as one of Europe's most important post-war writers.
Patience (After Sebald)
