Phoenix

There is intrigue. There is suspense. Guilt - a man's guilt, a nation's - hangs heavy in the air.

For what it sets out to accomplish, across a brisk 98 minutes, Petzold’s film feels perfectly judged. And it builds to an ending that’s just plain perfect.

Petzold distills a familiar atmosphere to create a work veiled in vibrant, cohesive, sensitively stimulating power.

The movie isn’t a thriller, but it still generates a strange sort of emotional suspense - an incredibly intense drama that makes you hold your breath, and it builds toward a total knockout of a final scene in which the story is resolved with hardly a word.

The ending is stunning, a brilliant and forceful reclamation that doesn’t necessarily provide answers, but does provide hard-earned satisfaction.

Petzold's Phoenix is a high-concept premise executed as a heart-wrenching character piece.

If viewed as a literal narrative, the post-war German drama Phoenix, with its implausibilities and contrivances, works only so well. If viewed as an allegory, on the other hand, it ends up as something else entirely -- something intriguing, complex and altogether moving.

PHOENIX is the only film I have ever seen based entirely on a single song - and very short song, at that. Kurt Weill left Germany for New York before WW II. His music was declared degenerate by ****. During the war he wrote 'Speak Low' for a Broadway play (not a musical) called 'One Touch of Venus'. The lyric 'speak low ', written by Ogden Nash, is taken from the opening lines of Shakespeare's As You Like It. In a way, the play, too, became an inspiration for the film. The movie is a parable dealing with man's inhumanity to man, yet it is an extraordinary affirmation of life. It is absolutely brilliant, so brilliant that it won't be around for very long, so GO!

“They don’t make them like the did in the old days, “ is the cry of many senior film buffs, including me. In “Phoenix” the director, and co-writer with Harun Farocki, Christian Petzold certainly tries. With bits of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” here, Kander and Ebb’s, with Fosse’s, “Cabaret” there, this movie, as film noir, cries out for a Barbara Stanwyck or Lana Turner and to have been filmed in black and white. The story of a woman, Nelly, who had her face damaged by a gunshot wound in a German concentration camp has her face reconstructed after the war and goes looking for her husband Johnny. Upon finding him he doesn’t recognize her and tries to get her involved with a get rich scheme by having her impersonate his late wife so he can get her inheritance that was left by her relatives who died in the war. “As Time Goes By” is an important part of “Casablanca” as are “Again” in “Road House” and “Que Sera, Sera” in “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and this movie too has a song that becomes an important part of the story, by Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash, called “Speak Low” which is heard throughout the film and impacts the ending. Nina Hoss, as Nelly, may not have the sexuality of a Lana Turner, and is a beauty in her own right, but she is the equal of Barbara Stanwyck in the acting department. She can and does say a lot with a look, her eyes through bad or good and the way she holds herself. You watch her progression from a scared, downtrodden woman to the beautiful, confident woman she was before the war. Ronald Zehrfeld, as her husband Johnny, who thinks that she can pass for his wife that could help him put his scam over has doubts about who she really may be but not enough to stop him. Zehrfeld has a romantic innocence that makes him seem less the villain than he is. Another major, but undeveloped, role is Nina Kunzendorf as Lene, who does a lot for Nelly but their relationship isn’t quite defined and is unceremoniously out of the film before the halfway mark. I was told by Allen that the film was an analogy of Germany after the war but I will admit it went right over my head! It might account for why I didn’t like the film as much as I expected to but it did introduce me to Hoss, Zehrfeld and Petzold enough for me to want to see the previous films they have made together. “Phoenix” is a German film with (some poor such as ‘sit up‘ instead of ‘sit down‘) subtitles running 98 minutes.

Director Christian Petzold and actress Nina Hoss have now brought us a string of accomplished films exploring Germany's past and present, culminating with the extraordinary BARBARA. What a disappoint it is to report on PHOENIX. A metaphorical conception of a concentration camp survivor given a new face (literally) only to come back to Berlin to follow her husband, the man that betrayed her. PHOENIX is worthy of Sirk or Fassbinder. Petzold's direction is without merit and he gives one of our best actresses nothing to do. A total misfire that I found downright dull.

If my wife chopped off her head, I would still recognize every other inch of her remaining body. No way in hell can a man not recognize his wife mannerisms, body language and aura. The face is inconsequential. You will have to totally suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy this movie. I couldn't do it, hence the 3 out of 10 review.

Absurd premise. ALERT: this movie asks the viewer to believe a man would not recognize his wife simply because her facial features have changed. Same voice. Same body. Same walk. Same laugh. Same handwriting. Same every single other thing. I contend that is patently ridiculous. But it is the whole premise of this movie. Buyer beware - absurd premise. Glacial pacing. Depressing story. You have been warned.