Reviews
A remarkable example of finding home movies in the attic that open a window on an entire world, "A Letter Without Words" provides a glimpse of Germany between the wars that is privileged in more than one sense of the word. Consisting mostly of footage taken by the present filmmaker's wealthy grandmother between 1914 and 1938, Lisa Lewenz's concise, highly evocative docu will fascinate anyone with an interest in 20th-century history...Inevitably, the most haunting images are those of Nazi Germany... Subsequent Gotham footage again shows Einstein, this time at the 1939 world's fair, and postwar material includes glimpses of a devastated Germany Ella took on a late-'40s visit...The film is technically fine, and transpositional moments in which Lisa sets up her camera in modern Berlin in exactly the same spots where her grandmother took pictures some six decades before are especially effective.
— Todd McCarthy, Variety
Full Review "One of the best-received films of the [Berlin Film] festival, Lewenz's stunning film... serves as a powerful reminder of how the past is close behind us."
— Ryan Deussing, The Village Voice
Full Review "A really wonderful Sundance documentary ... simply remarkable - Einstein in Berlin in 1929, the bliss of pre-Hitler Jewish life in Germany, the gradual disintegration of a society that finally forced the family to flee to America. Plus, a lot of great stuff shot in New York in the '30s (a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, for instance, and a virtually open skyline). Some of it shot, too, on the earliest color film....If there was something to remember about this year's festival -besides the work of Ella Lewenz- it is that the medium will always be capable of bringing people together, in some cases relatives who have never even met."
— John Anderson, Newsday
"A remarkable film, wholly devoid of sentimentality...with the richness and resonance of a fine novel."
— Goldie Charles, New York Jewish Week
"A love letter without equal...one of those fascinating, eerie duets - not unlike Natalie Cole's recorded "duet" with her long-dead father, Nat King Cole - that show how technology permits family members to collaborate from beyond the grave."
— Carrie Rickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer