Film No. 22 (2015) Pheonix April 2nd.

Film No. 22 (2015) April 2nd.  7.30 PM SOMERVILLE U.W.A. Nedlands.

 

Phoenix

 

Imagine yourself explaining the plot for an excellent film you have just watched. Your explanation goes something like this. "There's this girl and she has suffered facial injuries from her time in a German concentration camp. The injuries are so severe that her face needs to be re-constructed. She is given a choice as to how she might like to look. She chooses to look like her former self. Once the bandages are removed she seeks to find her husband, who presumes she is dead. She finds him and he doesn't recognize her, but seeing she looks very like his former wife, he comes up with a plan for her to impersonate said wife so that he can receive her inheritance.

 

My explanation of the plot is simplistic but that is the crux. I assume you might be thinking about how impossible such a plot could be. I watched this film without reading any reviews or summaries and I'm so glad I did. An inkling of the implausibility of the plot may have stopped me buying tickets to Phoenix. That would have been a shame because it is a film full of mystery and intrigue.

 

Christian Petzold is an excellent German film maker who has input in all aspects of his projects from the screenplay through to editing. His last film, Barbara, placed a strong-willed woman in the precarious position of trying to exit East Germany in the mid eighties. Nina Hoss played the lead as she does in Phoenix. Nelly like Barbara is desperate but this time we never quite know what she is thinking; and therein lies the mystery. 

 

We hope the choices she makes earn her a better life. She deserves it after all she has suffered. Like Barbara,  Nina is a good woman but vulnerable. This film is a beautifully shot period piece (1946 ish) with a premise paralleling a fairy story. But like every good fairy story it's the message that counts. The ending is also important and for me, the ending to Phoenix is brilliant. 8GUMS.