‘I Is Another’ Review: An Impeccable Claes Bang Plays Felix Kersten, Massage Therapist to Heinrich Himmler and Would-Be Nobel Laureate
‘I Is Another’ is a stylish postwar psychological thriller about Felix Kersten, Heinrich Himmler’s former massage therapist, who claimed to have helped free thousands of concentration-camp prisoners. Set as Kersten travels to Oslo in 1952 hoping for a Nobel Peace Prize, the film tests his self-crafted legend against the scrutiny of a determined journalist, raising questions about historical truth, self-mythology and the malleability of public narratives.
Claes Bang plays Kersten as a polished, charismatic and narcissistic fabulist, while Valerie Pachner provides a strong counterpoint as fictional reporter Hedda Wohmann, whose investigation is driven by professional ambition and personal motives. Writer-director Felix Randau stages their confrontation largely on a Stockholm–Oslo night train, using intimate cinematography and differing accounts of the same events to expose uncertainty around Kersten’s claims; the film premiered in Locarno’s Piazza Grande section.
- Claes Bang excels as a man defending his disputed wartime legacy.
- A journalist challenges Kersten’s claims of rescuing concentration-camp prisoners.
- The thriller explores memory, evidence and historical self-invention.