With this film, actor Maximilian Schell looks back at the acting career of his sister Maria and incidentally also provides a rare, insightful look at the post-war West German film industry which also gave us Hardy Kruger, Oskar Werner and Curt Jurgens. In the present day, Maria is suffering from dementia, leading to grave financial problems and for her to feel as one person puts it as if she is in another reality altogether. That last part is expressed perfectly by of all things clips from ?Deep Impact.? All of which Maximilian Schell uses in a non-traditional manner that owes more to narrative tradition than documentaries, creating a hybrid film that expresses his elegiac sentiments well.

Sad view of a once strong and renowned woman who descends into the maelstrom of mental illness and infirmity.

Fascinating documentary on the celebrated Austrian actress.

It's not easy to classify Maximilian Schell's occasionally clumsy but always touching tribute to his actress sister, and it's equally difficult not to be moved by it.

My Sister Maria is a strange bouquet, a sort of pre-memorial.

Bbrave, heartless, and exceedingly strange.

Aa heartfelt but eccentric, pseudo-documentary.

A thoughtful look backward, a summing up that attempts to understand what is ephemeral and what truly lasts, what it is that matters in the final analysis.

As tense and fractured, as alienating -- and, finally, touching -- a work as it undoubtedly ought to be.