A revolver, which is introduced in the first act, is to be launched in the third act, Chekhov wrote. To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric, dictated Adorno. I is another, knew Rimbaud. And what do I care about the whole caboodle ?, responds Christian Petzold. The gun may indeed remain lying unused, Auschwitz has not killed the poetry; and sure I is not no other. Even if someone does not recognize me anymore and wants to turn me in to who I am already.
This is the tricky psychological model in “Phoenix” by German director Christian Petzold (“Internal security”). Nelly (Nina Hoss), a Jew and Auschwitz survivor, returns with a disfigured face from the camp. A friend (Nina Kunz village) by the Jewish Agency makes it the singer comfortable in Berlin in 1945, just in case she gives her a revolver. Nelly goes to the plastic surgeon to look as it did before (and not as Zarah Leander, as the doctor recommends). Nelly soon takes off the bandage and scans against all good advice back in the world of ruins of Berlin, to track down her husband Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld): the pianist, with whom she sang and she still loves; the non-Jews, which they preserved thanks to the couple’s marriage from the Nazis and who they might yet reveal at the end. She stalks around like a spirit of the World War, and then she finds Johnny in the American sector, in a vaudeville called Phoenix.
Classes in basement
Large Hello, and the story would be over. But Johnny recognizes Nelly not again. He sees instead someone who looks remarkably like his wife. Johnny believes Nelly dead, destroyed in the camp. But he has an idea. He wants to make of this strange woman Nelly; He wants Esther (that’s the name Nelly, as she realizes that she is not recognized) plays his wife Nelly, so that he can present them as angelic concentration camp survivors and reap the legacy of their murdered relatives. Of course Nelly Johnny could tell who she is, but he would not believe her. Nelly but want to stay close to him and begins scared like a deer to play their own ego.
You can long giggle about the schmo B-movie logic. Or you can also believe the plot simple. For Christian Petzold (along with his recently deceased co-author Harun Farocki) builds the psychological thriller as a pulp novel, so he can spit more violent action under the ground the feeling Slava. That’s great and clever: In “Phoenix” less dominated the historical probability. Instead rule: the rule confidence of cinema, the blackness of the night Film noir, the hitchcocksche suspense, the “leading couple” from Hollywood’s golden age.
Distressing reconstruction
Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld play the pair, as in Petzold’s counterpart “Barbara” (2012). As Hoss’ Barbara wanted to escape from the summer bright GDR and was held back by the love of a man, in which the suspect had mixed. “Phoenix” is “Barbara”, but inverted: Nelly wants to make sure Johnny’s love to people back into life – but first they must be Nelly. These locks Johnny Esther / Nelly in a basement and has them as a coach in the sports drama. You should go learn how to write Nelly, Nelly, wearing makeup like Nelly. And Esther / Nelly exercises step by step is to be someone who she is already. Or at least was, before the war.
It plays virtually their own copy, in a desperate mirrored mimesis. Too good at being themselves, they should not be, otherwise the representation of a presumed dead tilts uncanny; Johnny, however, convinced her interpretation of Nelly often not (and probably all of us are lousy actors of our ego). Slowly but the Self of Esther / Nelly from Johnny is assembled attributions -. A painful reconstruction of identity
Both want to draw each other
There is a devilish confusion: The Memories of the luck with Johnny Nelly have held the camp alive; now they should bring out her pain under layers vitality, to which Johnny recalls. Love, whose authenticity will check Nelly, they can not show, because Johnny’s mistress does not recognize in her. And Johnny, the Goi, the Jewess Nelly to Ausch joke survivors that will emerge from the ashes of history trained as a newly-born icon with summer shoes from Paris – what Nelly in turn holds for an overly glamorous return, because she was actually in stock .
Stupid? Complex. The rehearsals in the basement are, wrote an introduction to the microphysics of power into strategic game of truth on the “quivering base of power relations,” as Michel Foucault. In the chamber Drama shift the weights between Johnny and Nelly. Both try to steer the other: Johnny, as he composed his lost wife; Nelly by trying to come into view as the one they had.
The sensational Nina Hoss dubbed the absurdity with her talent for shading and brings the many small divisions to the surface: Your face turns from the wide open hoping Johnny may finally realize into disappointment that but he does not. The next moment she turns away in shame and then will again prove to role-play: microphysics of facial expressions. Ronald Zehrfeld meanwhile, shines as imperious Pygmalion especially if he reacts speechless on his Nelly.
The joys of existence
“Phoenix” does not offer German History for those who like to deal with a screaming Hitler in the living room. Petzold tells rather in reduced sceneries and konstrastreichen images of the re-appropriation of the (collective) identity; and of that which was before the Nazis: Art, Music, Love. Nina Hoss plays not as if she had been in a concentration camp, she is a woman who can not bring to the language you resist extended agony. And who believes against all odds, they could bring back the beauty of existence and her former self – what she needs Johnny. It then plays the song “Speak Low” by Kurt Weill a special role, and in the end leaves Nelly Johnny stunned her back. Finish. Amazement.
Phoenix (D 2014). 98 minutes
Director and screenwriter:. Christian Petzold (employees Harun Farocki). With Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunz village, inter alia
From Thursday in Zurich in Packed Films start the second 10, in Zurich from 6 10 (Tages-Anzeiger)
(Created: 23/09/2014, 17:49 clock)
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