PHOENIX
Sundance Selects
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: A-
Director: Christian Petzold
Screenwriter: Christian Petzold, Harun Farocki, Hubert Monteilhet, adapted from Hubert Monteilhet’s “Return From the Ashes”
Cast: Nina Hoss, Nina Kunzendorf, Ronald Zehrfeld, Trystan Putter, Michael Maertens, Imogen Kogge, Felix Romer
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 6/25/15
Opens: July 24, 2015
Just when you thought that all Holocaust-themed movies had been exhausted, along comes “Phoenix” which, actually, is not a brand new take on its repercussions. Hubert Monteilhet’s novel “Return from the Ashes” covers the material, adapted by Harun Farocki, and the novel had been filmed by J. Lee Thompson starring Maximilan Schell and Ingrid Thulin. “Phoenix,” which is both the name of a Berlin cabaret and a symbol of a recreated woman, is a fascinating look at the relationship of a German-Jewish woman who hid out during the war but was arrested in 1944, and the man who was her husband and who thinks of a plan to use his wife, a survivor of Auschwitz, to collect and split a sum of money set aside by Germany to compensate living persons who got out of the camps alive.
“Phoenix” is done as a Hitcockian ghost story in the vein of “Vertigo” about a shipbuilder who asks a retired police detective to follow his wife, who may be in danger of suicide as she thinks she is possessed by a dead ancestor. This new take on an identity crisis is directed by Christian Petzold, whose “Barbara” deals with a doctor in the East Germany of the 1980s who finds herself banished to a small country hospital.
Not only is “Phoenix” a wholly absorbing, even mystical tale albeit one set amidst the rubble of Berlin in 1945. It is graced by a first-rate performance from Nina Hoss, not only the title figure in “Barbara” but a performer with twenty-eight films in her résumé. Hoss takes the part of Nelly Lenz, who opens the story in a conversation with a plastic surgeon who suggests remodeling her face, which had been destroyed by a bullet, and assuming a new identity. As she would prefer to look exactly like her old self, the doctor does his best but not quite enough to allow her husband Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld who comes through as a cross between Clark Gable and Russell Crowe) to recognize her. Johnny was a pianist before the war and his wife Nelly was his singer.
Though Nelly’s best friend Lene Winter (Nina Kunzendorf) pushes her to go with her to Palestine, allowing her to choose either Tel Aviv or Haifa, Nelly wants first to determine whether her husband ratted her out to the Nazi authorities and whether he still loves her. She seeks out and finds Johnny, now a busboy in the Phoenix cabaret and living in a basement. In the film’s least believable theme, Johnny does not recognize his wife but considers “Esther” so close in appearance to Nelly that he concocts with her a plan to declare “Esther” to be actually Nelly and to split a survivor’s sum of $40,000 50-50 with her once the ploy is believed by the authorities.
Each of the two principals, then, wants something. She wants to find out whether her Christian husband remained loyal to her or whether her arrest came about by his revealing her hiding place. He wants money. The relationship between the two anchors the film as we in the audience wonder whether a) she can pull off her wish, and b) whether he can deceive the authorities. We also wonder whether at some point the husband will see through Nelly’s scheme and, if so, how that revelation will be made. In that regard, the conclusion is at once subtle and highly dramatic.
Hans Fromm shot the movie largely on location in Berlin’s Brandenburg area and also in Wroclaw, Poland. Dialogue is in German with English subtitles with some songs in English. “Phoenix” played at festivals in Toronto, Vancouver, London, Rome and Seattle.
Rated PG-13. 98 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – A-
Acting – A
Technical – A-
Overall – A-
