Resolutely unshowy, this portrait of the emigrant German-Jewish writer who covered the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann for the New Yorker and coined the phrase "the banality of evil" is a compelling depiction of a contest of ideas.
Even the choice of title - it was to have been called Controversy - is testament to its plainness.
Many of the words are Arendt's own, drawn from letters and lectures, and it unfolds as a series of conversations between people in tweed and tan in gloomy rooms. And it's as gripping as a thriller.
Starting in 1975 with The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, which she made with then-husband Volker Schlondorff, von Trotta has always placed women at the centre of the frame.
Rosa Luxemburg, her 1986 portrait of the Marxist pioneer, earned Sukowa, in the title role, a Cannes best actress prize. The actress radiates a brave and heroic beauty here as she incarnates one of last century's great intellectual heroes.
