‘The Tobacconist’: Film Review
Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticA cigar is never just a cigar where Sigmund Freud is concerned. The father of psychoanalysis serves as a supporting character in “The Tobacconist” — and none other than the great Bruno Ganz embodies the iconic smoker, making this one of the German actor’s last (and least bombastic) performances.Ganz, whom many will recognize from his role as Adolf Hitler in “Downfall,” now plays one of the Führer’s many victims, a Jewish-born atheist forced to flee his comfortable Viennese home during the Anschluss of 1938, when Germany annexed Austria and occupied its capital, meeting with enthusiastic support from National Socialists and anti-Semites who agreed with his policies.