Jerichow

Film noir is alive and well in Christian Petzold's steamy German thriller, which builds a tense, disturbing atmosphere and sense of imminent violence around a classic love triangle. Basically a recycling of James M. Cain's oft-filmed classic, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Petzold brings to the story of a handsome guy who falls for his employer's sultry wife (with potentially homicidal results) a peculiarly Teutonic touch, not only in the foreign setting but also in some intriguing details, such as making the husband, Ali (Hilmi Sözer), a man of Turkish descent, which acknowledges the ethnic divisions in today's Germany. And there are significant plot changes, not only in terms of the murder planned by the lovers, Thomas and Laura (Benno Fürmann and Nina Hoss), but also in the denouement, which will startle anyone familiar with Cain's original. Here, mood is everything, and while the cast isn't uniformly successful, Jerichow still generates enough of the requisite simmering heat and smoldering tension to satisfy anyone who wants to see the postman, as it were, ring again in new surroundings. Recommended. (F. Swietek)