„...Jonatan Briel weist sich mit seinen drei Film-Porträts berühmter Persönlichkeiten der deutschen Literatur als Spezialist für das schwierige Genre des biographischen Films aus. 1969 entstand sein Heinrich von Kleist-Film "Wie zwei fröhliche Luftschiffer; 1971 drehte er "Jonatan Briels Lenz", eine Biographie von Goethes Jugendfreund, Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz; 1975 vollendete er "Glutmensch", ein Portrait des Dichters und Dramatikers Christian Friedrich Hebbel. Eine Briel-Filmbiographie ist immer auch zugleich eine persönliche Begegnung mit dem Protagonisten; Briels Filmstil versucht, das Lebensgefühl der jeweiligen Epoche einzufangen und wiederzugeben. Jonatan Briel arbeitete mit kleinem Budget; Drehort war meistens West-Berlin. Der ungewöhnliche Charakter seiner Filme stellt eine Herausforderung an seine Kritiker dar. Der Drehbuchautor und Regisseur Briel setzt sich so lange und intensiv mit einem Thema auseinander, bis er Inhalt und Struktur eines Projekts vollständig verinnerlicht hat. 1976 und 1982 zeigte das Arsenal-Kino in Berlin Retrospektiven der Jonatan Briel Filme - ein Erlebnis für den Liebhaber des Neuen Deutschen Films...“

„...there is much conviction about this difficult film and contributing to the conviction, the leading prayer has even a striking resemblance to the poet playwright. Both technically and artistically an utterly unconventional film that requires a receptive viewer...“

„...the literary analysis of Heinrich von Kleist as it is created by K. D. Briel shows that it is well worth having faith in the German film...“

„at the Locarno Festival Briel was highly successful with his film about Heinrich von Kleist and was given much attention abroad, where his film was widely discussed and reviewed in the USA, France and Italy. His film about Berlin deserves even more attention. It was shown on the German Television at the night-studio-series „Camera-Films“. It is - at last – a film which demonstrates the courage to compose impressions of Berlin, completely detached from any ‚modern’ trend. It is necessary to see the color version because color is here one of the main composition factors. Past and future times are shown in warm and normal shades, the present is however painted in manipulated and detachment-provoking colours. The Gedächtniskirche (Empirial Memorial Church) appears in an empty grey-blue, the Reichstag (Parliament) – shot from a railway territory – freezes in a pale midnight-blue, empty railway sidings in the front – itself beoming an empty siding. The Russian Church appears in all shades of blue, radiating in turquoise and rose (pink). This is the scenario of the colors. Much more important ist he whole film as a >picture-puzzle<, showing a threefold face of Berlin: the old imperial and fascist Berlin, the old „Reichshauptstadt“, then the newly constructed Berlin, built into cool sand, around the Breitscheidplatz, the New Memorial Church. And finally Berlin as it is talked about by the old (lady) Berlin Lady Adelheide Pickert – the Berlin to be – the Berlin which is becoming European Center without dead weights from the past, the geographical center of a free Europe. Here – as Briel puts it – the future of the progressive young people may be created. In facht the portrait of the 90-years-old former great singer Adelheide Pickert (famous as Mahler-interprete around 1910) is not manipulated into this film- her person corresponds exactly to the outward emptiness. The things she says are very far out, strangely brilliant – creating a counterpoint to the filmed atomosphere of the 1970 Berlin summer. With a first-class fotography, a brilliant and imaginative scenario, far away from any clichee, supported by the long-drawn, mind-penetrating and beautifully composed music, making visible the essence, this film shows that images can be regarded as they are – that there is nothing mysterious about them. There is no clichee, there is poetry, there is tension created by colors and cuts.“