CANNES, France- Polish-born director Pawel Pawlikowski wanted to show the complexities of history, instead of pushing an overly simple narrative, with "Fatherland," his Cannes Film Festival entry about novelist Thomas Mann's return to post-war Germany.

"A lot of historical films that I watch, I notice, have a clear thesis, and they organise history according to the narrative that whoever is making the film is trying to sell us," he told journalists on Friday, a day after the premiere.

"I just try to show how complicated it all is, which I think is a very healthy thing to tell people today," he added.

"If you know absolutely that your narrative is right, it's dangerous."

Set in 1949, "Fatherland" follows Mann, played by Hanns Zischler, as he visits Germany for the first time since fleeing the Nazis to accept the Goethe Prize, named after another of Germany's greatest writers.

CHALLENGING POLITICAL BOUNDARIES

Mann, who had already won the Nobel Prize for Literature, in an effort to rise above the Cold War binary of communism and capitalism, has decided to travel to Weimar, in East Germany, as well as Frankfurt, Goethe's birthplace, in the West.

He is accompanied by his daughter Erika, played by "Project Hail Mary" star Sandra Hueller, who is struck by grief after the latest tragedy to hit the Mann family. Outwardly, her father is impassive.

"It's about all these emotions that are withheld. It wasn't a world where people talk about their emotions like today," said Pawlikowski, whose previous Cannes entry "Cold War" won the best director prize before he went on to be nominated for an Oscar.

"Fatherland," which was shot in black and white and is in German and other languages, received rave reviews. The Guardian newspaper gave it five out of five stars. It is one of 22 films competing for Cannes' top prize, the Palme d'Or, which will be given out on May 23.

-Reporting by Miranda Murray; editing by Barbara Lewis/Reuters