Near the beginning of Pawel Pawlikowski’s stunning film on novelist’s Thomas Mann’s return to Germany in 1949, the author and his daughter Erika drive through war-torn Frankfurt, the city reduced to rubble. It’s a scene which showcases in the first clip from the film, but it also features in current events, as I awoke on the morning to the news that multiple Russian-deployed drones had hit Kiev, bringing the haunting film home. In more ways than one.