Home
News
In Focus
Business
Metro
Nation
World
Sports
Feature
Opinion
View more »Opinion Columns
Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
Who are these people? Online false friends intrude upon our privacy
A proactive governance style adapted to a village of strangers in modern times
Sunday
- Subscribe
Post-WWII drama sizzles with tension
Print Edition
OUT of the ashes of summer moviegoing emerges a masterpiece.
“Phoenix,” by the German filmmaker Christian Petzold, is a post-World War II drama set in Germany where the bombed-out streets of Berlin are strewn with rubble and shame.
Few Holocaust dramas have plunged into the aftermath like this. “Phoenix” resurrects this world with a mesmerizing tale of broken, and reclaimed, identity.
Nelly Lenz (Nina Hoss) is a Jewish nightclub singer returned to Berlin from Auschwitz by her friend Lene (Nina Kunzendorf). Her face, covered in bloody bandages, has been badly disfigured. She’s brought to a doctor for facial reconstruction. Before going under the knife, the doctor asks if “a Jewess like yourself” wouldn’t rather look like someone else.
Nelly doesn’t hesitate: She wants to look as much like herself as possible. But after the surgery, she’s unrecognizable.
It’s a harrowing homecoming. Many of those she’s returning to were either Nazis or informants.
Seeking inheritance
Nelly soon seeks to find her husband, a former piano-player named Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld), a Gentile whose betrayal may have sent Nelly to Auschwitz.
When she finds him in a smoky club named the Phoenix, he’s working as a busboy and doesn’t recognize her. She doesn’t reveal herself. But Johnny thinks she looks enough like his wife (he believes she’s dead) to pose as her so he can collect the inheritance.
From his subterranean hovel, Johnny teaches Nelly how to act like his wife and how to appear like a camp survivor. She goes along with his scheme and we do, too, because Hoss’ performance is so powerfully delicate.
Petzold masterfully spins the layers of duplicity and denial until “Phoenix,” and Nelly, finally shake them off in a breathtaking climax to a profoundly mournful movie.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
