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What do we do when we are faced with unimaginable betrayal? Is it possible to overcome the kinds of events that permanently alter the course of a life that we so desperately want to relive? These are just two of the questions that are addressed in Christian Petzold’s masterful “Phoenix,” a film that solidifies the director’s position as one of the most impressive filmmakers working today. Petzold’s film, which contains echoes of “Vertigo” and a visually confident style, continues to reverberate long after the film’s perfect conclusion. While remaining true to its human story, this is also a commentary on how a whole country deals with tragedies such as war, which makes for a compelling piece of work. An all-around satisfying film—one that can be enjoyed for its narrative alone while also providing material for hours of discussion on its themes—is extremely difficult to come by.
The film “Phoenix” opens with a profile of a face silhouetted in darkness. It is the face of Lene (Nina Kunzendorf), a woman who is driving a bandaged and bloodied passenger back to Berlin from a remote location. Despite the fact that her face has been severely damaged, she is a survivor of a concentration camp. When the pair passes through a checkpoint, the screen is filled with headlights before the title is displayed on the screen. This will unmistakably be a story about transitioning from darkness to light, even if the light is sometimes blinding.
We learn that the passenger is Nelly Lenz (Nina Hoss, a collaborator of Petzold’s), a German-Jewish nightclub singer who, based on the appearance of photographs and conversations with her friend Lene, led a happy life. The man she married was a handsome, self-assured gentleman named Johnny (another Petzold regular, Ronald Zehrfeld). Johnny was taken into custody by the Secret Service on October 4th for questioning. He was released two days later, and Nelly was deported to a concentration camp the following day. Is it possible that Johnny betrayed his wife’s Jewish heritage? Clearly. Nelly, on the other hand, is not convinced. She wishes to return to her previous life. And denial of the fact that her husband was and continues to be a self-serving monster. After her plastic surgeon tells her that she can look like anyone and start a new life, she tells him that she wants to “look exactly like I used to.” “I want to look exactly like I used to,” she says. She is defiantly and stubbornly refusing to accept the reality of what has happened to her.
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Nelly returns to Berlin, despite Lene’s protests, in order to track down Johnny. She is a woman who has been shattered in a city of rubble. “I don’t exist anymore,” she informs Lene. The relationship, the friends she no longer sees in person but only in photographs, and even the city she once called home are all gone. Phoenix, the nightclub that resembles an oasis in the midst of ruins, provides her with a sense of comfort and familiarity, at least temporarily. It’s like a dream that people wake up from when they find themselves in the ruins of a bombed-out city. And it is there that she comes across Johnny. One night, he manages to seduce her. He’s devised a strategy. He requires someone to pose as his deceased wife in order for him to be able to claim her inheritance because there is no evidence that his wife has died. “You’re going to have to play my wife.” And as Johnny begins to transform this woman he believes to be a stranger into the wife he betrayed, the parallels between “Phoenix” and “Vertigo” become more apparent as he brings Nelly back to life by transforming her into the wife he betrayed.
Phoenix Forgotten Quiz
Every decision in “Phoenix” has been carefully considered, but never in such a way that the realism of the piece is compromised. With a rich cinematic language that avoids drawing attention to itself, it is a film that deserves to be seen. Petzold’s choices are subtle, from the way he frames the expressive faces of his actors to the use of the song “Night and Day” in a crucial club scene to a climactic conversation that takes place on a train track, which is so deeply symbolic of looking in one direction to the past and the other to the future, to the way he frames the expressive faces of his actors (as well as carrying historical weight with the trains that took people like Nelly to concentration camps). When it comes to visual expression, Petzold plays with contrasts such as darkness and light, rising from the ashes, overhead lighting, or neon red of the Phoenix sign, but he does so subtly that he doesn’t draw attention to them, instead allowing them to serve as a backdrop to his human drama.
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And it is in the midst of this human drama that Nina Hoss takes center stage. Watch the scene in which she removes her hat in a nightclub after noticing Johnny walk by for the first time in the film. Despite the fact that she is well aware of what he has done, she calls his name with delight. It’s a name she’s been called a thousand times already. He doesn’t seem to notice her. Or it’s possible that he looks at her and doesn’t recognize her. She is unable to attend. His brain is completely unable to comprehend the possibility that she could be there. Hoss covers her mouth with her hand, her face contorted with horror. It is not Johnny’s betrayal, but rather Johnny’s dismissal, that is causing her pain right now. It is impossible for him to see her any longer, and so when he offers her the opportunity to “become Nelly” once more, she jumps at the chance to do so. Johnny asks Nelly to assist him in crafting a story about what he believes to be her false narrative of her time in a concentration camp at one point in the film. Without a doubt, the story Nelly begins to tell is accurate. Hoss is shaky and unable to speak clearly because she is clutching her hands to her face. Johnny, on the other hand, is equally uneasy. The fiction he believes he’s creating and the reality they’re both denying are beginning to come into conflict with one another. Hoss is absolutely fantastic in this scene, and he is throughout the entire film.
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To be fair, Zehrfeld is also a very talented actor. Look at one of the scenes where he returns home to find Nelly dressed appropriately, made-up, and looking more like the Nelly of his memories. Is that a glimmer of recognition on his face as he looks at you? Is he conscious of what he’s done? No, that can’t be the case. He can’t possibly be that person, and she can’t possibly still be alive. She is a ghost, a reminder of what he has done and of what the entire world has lost as a result of World War II.
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If we’re lucky, we’ll get a package as complete as “Phoenix” a few times a year. Sometimes we get character studies with performances as strong as Hoss and Zehrfeld, and other times we get auteur-driven films with complex visual choices and an emphasis on style, as in the case of Hoss and Zehrfeld. It’s rare to see a film that is so well-balanced that it can serve as a commentary on the human need to deny war and betrayal while also remaining focused on the story of a pianist and nightclub singer in 1945 Berlin. It’s the kind of piece that can be dissected and appreciated for decades because it works on so many different levels. And I am confident that it will be.
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