Loosely based on Hubert Monteilhet's 1961 French crime novel Le Retour des Cendres (filmed once before in 1965 as Return from the Ashes), Christian Petzold's adaptation jettisons the novel's melodrama, boiling the plot down to a simple but powerful parable of rebirth revolving around love, loss, betrayal, guilt, and greed in post-World War II Germany, where the enormities of the Holocaust are still both immediate and unresolved. In 1945, Nelly Lenz (Nina Hoss), a Jewish cabaret singer who survived Auschwitz with her face badly disfigured, undergoes reconstructive surgery. Returning to Berlin, she tracks down her husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld), who doesn't recognize her as his wife, whom he thinks is dead. But Johnny notices a facial similarity and suggests that they conspire to claim a large inheritance by having her impersonate Nelly. She agrees, hoping to use their time together to find out whether Johnny had betrayed her to the authorities in order to save his own skin. Petzold frames the tale as a noir-ish suspense film in the style of Hitchcock's Vertigo, telling in a deliberate and sensuous style a story of the refashioning of a woman to meet a man's requirements. But it's not merely Nelly who is being reborn like the mythological phoenix: it's also Germany, and the question looms as to whether the country will choose a path based on denial and deception or accept the realities of its brutal past. A twisty thriller with much more on its narrative plate, this is highly recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include a conversation between director Christian Petzold and star Nina Hoss (26 min.), a “making-of” featurette (21 min.), an interview with cinematographer Hans Fromm (13 min.), a trailer, and an essay by critic Michael Koresky. Bottom line: a solid extras package for this fine foreign drama.] (F. Swietek)
Phoenix
Criterion, 98 min., in German w/English subtitles, PG-13, DVD: $29.95, Blu-ray: $39.95, Apr. 26 Volume 31, Issue 3
Phoenix
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
Order From Your Favorite Distributor Today: