Dying (2024)

Direction: Matthias Glasner
Country: Germany

Matthias Glasner’s semi-autobiographical drama, Dying offers a grim portrayal of a fractured family grappling with illness, estrangement, and emotional baggage. The film, rigorous in its execution and often shocking in its emotional rawness, centers on a severely ill elderly couple (Corinna Harfouch and Hans-Uwe Bauer) before shifting its focus to their two adult children: Tom (Lars Eidinger), a proud conductor in Berlin, and Ellen (Lilith Stangenberg), a troubled dental assistant battling alcoholism, are both too consumed by their own lives and unresolved traumas to care for their dying parents. 

Structured in five immersive chapters, the picture doesn’t have the advantage of brevity but is never boring. Carrying a great deal of coldness and pain, slightly eased by occasional black humor, the film strikes a jarring chord in family relationships, showcasing a tough reality where love cannot be felt or demonstrated. 

Bathed in vitriol, Dying alternates excellent scenes with other less successful—where incautious manipulation exists—becoming the sort of drama that one admires more than one enjoys. It ultimately finds its tone, managing to keep the viewer in suspense and with a fascination for understanding the inner conflicts of these characters. Clearly influenced by Michael Haneke, Ruben Ostlund, and Ulrich Seidl, Glasner is committed to keeping every moment grounded in truth, resulting in a satisfactory payoff.

Sisi & I (2024)

Direction: Frauke Finsterwalder
Country: Germany / Austria / Switzerland 

The fourth feature by German director Frauke Finsterwalder, Sisi & I, is a work of fiction inspired by historical reality. Co-written by Finsterwalder and Swiss author Christian Kracht, the film centers on the relationship between Empress Elizabeth of Austria, a.k.a. Sisi, and her last lady-in-waiting, the Hungarian Countess Irma Sztáray. 

Late in the 19th century, Irma (Sandra Huller) travels to the Greek island of Corfu to serve the reclusive, sometimes jubilant, sometimes moody, but often manipulative Empress (Susanne Wolff), overwhelmed by the demands of her duties. Desperate to avoid returning to court, Sisi’s constant fight against boredom is eased with cocaine elixirs, the occasional visits of her free-spirited friend, the Archduke Ludwig Viktor (Georg Friedrich), and her special bond with Irma. Yet, intense depression soon interferes with her leisure life.

Not as dynamic and provocative as Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage (2022), which explores similar territory, Sisi & I strikes a balance between the classic and the modern, especially through the sets and the anachronistic soundtrack - the charm of Portishead’s trip-hop gem “Glory Box” inundating the opening scene is undeniable. 

In her unflashy version, Finsterwalder chooses a common route, staging the story in her own terms and bringing some curious details into the fold. She makes a gracious, if occasionally tedious, effort to portray two frustrated women, modern for their time, who find refuge in a singular friendship. Despite its unevenness and tonal fluctuations, the film unpacks a feminist manifesto on power, sexuality, independence, allegiance, and sometimes cruelty. The sharp cinematography by Thomas W. Kiennast and the costume design by Tanja Hausner are assets, but the well-groomed film itself is a minor vehicle to deliver Huller's sober but firm performance. 

The Teacher's Lounge (2023)

Direction: Ilker Çatak
Country: Germany

In The Teachers’ Lounge, Ilker Çatak’s fourth feature film, a well-intentioned yet naive young teacher, Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch), finds herself entangled in a troubling situation spurred by a series of thefts at the German public school where she works. This skewed drama unfolds with a growing sense of discontent, occasionally adopting the intensity of a thriller.

Carla embarks on a clandestine investigation using questionable methods, only to discover a flawed scholar system, racial prejudice, and persistent manipulative tactics that hinder genuine problem-solving. The film captures her traumatic experience in a parent-teacher conference, and her difficulties in dealing with pressure from both cynical colleagues and aggressive students.

While the film raises thought-provoking questions about truth and justice, it refrains from providing definitive answers. Despite its noble intention to address contemporary classroom issues, the narrative loses momentum after a promising start, falling into the category of films that are admired more than enjoyed.

In reality, there's an element of outrage in this indirect call to civility, but the film feels somewhat slick and gimmicky. Moments with a stronger sense of real-life authenticity are juxtaposed with others featuring mannered dialogues and postures, causing the narrative to get bogged down in details. The Teachers’ Lounge could have been more involving, given its potential. 

Rheingold (2023)

Direction: Fatih Akin
Country: Germany 

While German writer-director Fatih Akin’s early films, such as Head-On (2004) and The Edge of Heaven (2007), are compelling choices, Rheingold - a tale of immigration, violence, and music based on the biography of German rapper Xatar - falls short of the mark. The movie chronicles the journey of Giwar Hajabi (Emilio Sakraya), a young Kurdish-Iranian immigrant who turns to a life of crime and drug trafficking before gaining notoriety as a music artist while incarcerated. However, both the segments portraying the street gangster and the musician prisoner prove to be tedious and unengaging.

Spanning 30 years, the narrative initially sparks interest but gradually loses its grip by resorting to standardized routines often seen in gangster action dramas. Rheingold struggles to offer moments that feel particularly original or inspired. The film is marred by a messy structure, lackluster storytelling, choppy editing, and dull action sequences. Frankly not likable, it lacks the excitement needed to leave a lasting impression. 

In summary, this amalgamation of gangsta-rap and gangland themes is a soulless misfire from a director we know capable of delivering better.

Afire (2023)

Direction: Christian Petzold
Country: Germany

Celebrated German filmmaker Christian Petzold (Phoenix, 2014; Transit, 2018; Undine, 2020) wrote Afire, a bleak and cerebral drama piece made of small but estimable details, as an intriguing character study. Inspired by Eric Rohmer’s summer tales and Anton Chekhov’s 1896 short story The House with the Mezzanine, the director manages to get our attention as his fictional story unfolds with raw and uncensored power.

Leon (Thomas Schubert), a young published author, and Felix (Langston Uibel), a photographer and art school applicant, decide to spend a working holiday in the latter’s family house in a remote area by the Baltic Sea. Once they get there, they realize the house is already occupied by Nadja (Paula Beer working here with the director for the third time in a row), who is very sweet, untidy and sometimes noisy. She doesn’t say much about herself. Whereas the selfish and uptight Leon is too frustrated and obsessed with writing his second novel to have fun with the others, the outgoing Felix and the luminous Nadja never miss an opportunity to socialize and enjoy the sea. There’s a massive forest fire nearby that suddenly poses a threat; yet everyone seems deeply immersed in their own thing to notice. 

Petzold controls the staging with a firm hand, developing intriguing character dynamics. But do the narrative parts build into something valuable as a whole? The conclusion, associating accomplished writing with something that has to be experienced, isn’t so convincing. Ultimately, in the impossibility of feel any sympathy for the sulky protagonist, we have the raw fragility of humans and the legitimacy of neat performances to cling to. At the very least, it’s interesting to see how strangers react under certain circumstances and how convivial atmospheres can get acerbic when someone in the group contaminates them. 

Petzold’s Afire is an erratic endeavor that can be considered minor within a filmography of so many accomplishments. Although imperfect, it deserves a favorable mention.

Mr. Bachmann and His Class (2022)

Direction: Maria Speth
Country: Germany

Humble, didactic and humane, this German documentary about a veteran teacher and his ‘foreign’ students was able to captivate, even if it draws out with more than three and a half hours of footage. Nothing too dramatic happens, but there’s warmth, caring and understanding all around. It’s an inspiring account that vibrates with compassion and tolerance. 

The title character, Dieter Bachmann, has been teaching at the Georg Büchner Comprehensive School in Stadtallendorf for 17 years. At just one step away from retirement, this man earns all the respect and affection of young students (ages between 12 and 14) in need of support and encouragement, who are about to attend secondary school. His classes are exceptional, favoring music and conversation to German and math. These very special teacher-student relationships are what make the film remarkable. 

The lack of a cohesive thesis may frustrate at times, but this baggy report, even not breaking my heart, provides illuminating insights into cultural issues and demonstrates that quality education is possible for even the most disadvantaged students. The patient, just, and attentive Mr. Bachmann is an example for everyone, everywhere, and Maria Speth’s second documentary isn't just a necessity, it might change the future of some kids.

Fabian: Going to the Dogs (2022)

Direction: Dominik Graf
Country: Germany

Veteran German director Dominik Graf offers a wryly enlightened view of Jakob Fabian (Tom Schilling), an advertising copywriter with compelling poetic skills who lives nonchalantly in the troubled final days of the Weimar Republic. The film is an adaptation of Erich Kästner's novel of the same name.

The year is 1931, and Berlin’s night life bursts with sweating brothels, lively cabarets, underground pubs, and intoxicated artistic gatherings. This is where Fabian and his best buddy, Stephan Labude (Albrecht Schuch), are found on a daily basis. The former is in love with Cornelia (Saskia Rosendahl), but falls victim to the financial crisis that darkens the city, whereas the latter takes a firm political stand against the quick advances of the right-wing party while trying to recover from a lost love. Meanwhile, the ambitious Cornelia propels her acting career with dire consequences for the relationship. 

Graf dominates the lens with peerless openness and gets creative in the presentation. He employs both picture-in-picture and fast-forwarded techniques, shooting off dazzling visual fireworks, and going totally burlesque in tone, often with a touch of madness. The influence of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his mundane depictions is very much on display here, but there are also glimpses of G.W. Pabst and Fritz Lang, almost in a sort of celebration of the classic German cinema.

The stirring beauty of Graf’s drama comes from the genuine feelings transmitted by the leads, who, together with the editor Claudia Wolscht, contribute to the furiously cinematic outcome. In turn, the big tragedy is called love, and not for a moment does Graf feed our fantasy that this romance will have a happy conclusion. In the end, one gets the notion that life, in all its turmoil, is not always fun.

Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes (2022)

Direction: Kevin Kopacka
Country: Germany

With a retro European style from the ’60s, Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes is a witty play of shadows, an unscary yet darkly funny experience, which occasionally stumbles across its tonal tightrope of comedy and horror. It’s not implausible to describe it as a cheerfully energetic horror film that, alternating silly and intriguing elements at the outset, ultimately comes away as a shamelessly entertaining mess.

Co-written and directed by Austrian-Sri Lankan Kevin Kopacka, the film follows the disappointed Margot (Luisa Taraz) and her critical husband Dieter (Frederik von Lüttichau working with the director for the second time). Soon after their arrival at the abandoned old castle she inherited from her wealthy family, they sense ghostly presences and experience strange episodes charged with voluptuousness. A different reality unfolds in the second part of the film, taking us to a psychedelic collective trip involving a film crew. 

Stylishly prurient and slightly anarchic, this little genre film is easy to watch, but lacks new blood and real scares, stuttering in its outrageous dreaminess. By giving the film a running time of 74 minutes, Kopacka is never at risk of making us exhausted, but not all the scenes hit the right notes in spite of the constant attention to detail. Nevertheless, the film demonstrates passion for mood and style while aiming more for the eyes than for the mind.

Cocoon (2022)

Direction: Leonie Krippendorff
Country: Germany 

In Leonie Krippendorff’s debut feature, Cocoon, particular stages of youth that lead to sexual and emotional maturity are compared to the dragging caterpillar that slowly transforms and soon will be able to fly in freedom. The backdrop for the sensitive awakening brought by this coming-of-age drama is Berlin, where the timid 14-year-old Nora (Lena Urzendowsky) lives with her big sister, Jule (Lena Klenke). They often hang at parties, at school, and a bit everywhere around the vibrant Kreuzberg district, and their alcoholic mother, Vivienne (Anja Schneider) is more absent than present in their lives.

Alcohol and drugs among the school friends are frequent and considered normal, but what gets Nora confused is the sexual attraction she feels for girls and not for boys. She’s clearly into girls, but the process of learning through romantic relationships is not without pain and disappointment. The early crush on Romy (Jella Haase), an approachable new girl from another class, will help her track down and solidify the sense of identity she keeps looking for. 

This summer lesbian romance is an immersive daydream of teenage girlhood into adulthood with all its highs and lows, and  ends up more tactful than the usual fabrications of the genre. Yet, sometimes the film could have used a certain glow of poetry to enhance the protagonist’s perspective and candidness. Fortunately, the process of self-discovery depicted here is saved from sentimentality.

Wood and Water (2022)

Direction: Jonas Bak
Country: Germany

Focusing on a naturalistic reality instead of the artificial, debutant German director Jonas Bak fixates his observant lens on a recently retired widow (played by the director’s mother Anke Bak) who tries to reunite with her daughter and son in the seashore house where they lived before. Since her elusive son, Max, couldn’t make it, she decides to travel to Hong Kong, where he lives and works, only to find the city immersed in pro-democracy protest.

After sleeping the first night in a shared room of a local motel, she was able to get into his apartment, located in the metropolitan area of Wan Chai. But no sight of him. To kill time and cover up the loneliness, she does tai-chi with the building’s doorman (Patrick Lo) and goes to a fortune teller, where she interacts with a former painter turned social activist (Ricky Yeung). 

Favoring a slow, simple style that recall Tsai Ming Liang’s contemplative cinema, Bak builds a ponderous story moved by a broad sense of emptiness, nostalgia and sadness. By using tilt shots to capture the main road and skyscrapers, he creates a sensation of slow motion that is reinforced by the minimalist drone-ambient music of Brian Eno, and even finds the time to incorporate some visual parcels of artistic sensibility. This is one of those drama films that requires patience. In that case , I hope you can extract something interesting from a handsomely framed meditation that straddles between documentary and fiction.

I'm Your Man (2021)

Direction: Maria Schrader
Country: Germany 

Maria Schrader’s third feature, I’m Your Man, is a wonderfully bizarre sci-fi rom-com with a polished aesthetic, some architecturally interesting settings, lovely performances, and tragicomic undertones. She re-teams up here with Jan Schomburg in the script, following the successful biopic Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (2016). The machinations that drive the film, which was based on a short story by Emma Braslavsky, are never too obvious, and both the formal discipline and slow pace are more beneficial than questionable. 

At the center of the plot is Alma (Maren Eggert), an archeologist in her mid forties, who, reluctantly, accepts to take an advanced humanoid robot home for three weeks, after which she has to write a report about the experience, answering the question: “are robots suitable as a partner replacement?”

This gallant robot, Tom (Dan Stevens), was programmed to be her perfect partner. He is able to read her slightest reactions and improve his algorithm on how to make her happy. Alma, who is more concerned about her soon-to-be-finished long research and her demented father (Wolfgang Hübsch), shows no enthusiasm in living with this figure, especially after a disappointing software crash during their first date. However, their relationship evolves over the course of the film, to a point where she becomes emotionally confused… more than she ever thought possible.

Comparisons with Spike Jonze’s Her have been made, but the present film, less sad in tone, pushes both the humor and the emotional depth to the foreground through a realistic human/robot interaction and not just a computerized voice.

The rippling musical score by Tobias Wagner is effective, while the central performances of Eggert (Das Experiment, 2001; Marseille, 2004) and Stevens (The Guest, 2014; Apostle, 2018) are of the lofty levels we have come to expect of them. Persuasively made, I’m Your Man is a smart move that elicits both strong thoughts and feelings without ever becoming creepy. Therefore, just let it gnaw at your own humanity.

Enfant Terrible (2020)

Direction: Oskar Roehler
Country: Germany

Oskar Roehler’s Enfant Terrible puts its focus on the life of unconventional filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, whose mundane pleasures and quest for love are portrayed here with undeniable panache. Fassbinder, remarkably impersonated by Oliver Masucci (Look Who’s Back; Never Look Away) in his most glorious role to date, was an irascible provocateur in life and in film. He never gave up on his dream to be among the greatest European directors, even after his first film, Love is Colder Than Death, a gangster film which he described as a remake of Raoul Walsh's White Heat, has been ridiculed. He could be a tyrant to the people working for him, and his homosexual relationships with actors had a tendency for the tragic.

His first obsession was Gunther Kaufman (Michael Klammer), a married black man who wanted to be in his films; the latter was followed by the restless Moroccan El Heidi ben Salem (Erdal Yildiz), the inspiration for and the lead in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974); and then Armin Meier (Jochen Schropp), a former butcher turned actor whose performances were not so prominent. The film only stresses these three, but there were more, including women.

Although incomplete and unfluctuating in mood, this biographical film gathers sufficient material for us to understand the director’s controversial personality. Soaked in alcohol and drugs, Fassbinder always said he understood his film characters in everything they did wrong in life. This was probably his mea culpa talking, a consequence of that wild fury and coarse manners that characterized him.

Keeping the tension at a fever pitch, Roehler, who worked from a script by Klaus Richter (their second collaboration), mounted it with some decadently fascinating moments.

Undine (2021)

Direction: Christian Petzold
Country: Germany / France

Shaped with the unique perspective and filmmaking charms of German helmer Christian Petzold (Yella, 2007; Barbara, 2012; Phoenix, 2014), Undine is a hypnotic love story anchored in the mythology and in the contemporary. This fascinating reality-fantasy hybrid centers on a passionate, if tragic, romance lived in today’s Berlin between an historian woman and water nymph, Undine (Paula Beer), and an industrial diver, Christoph (Franz Rogowski). The 16th-century myth says that the mythological water creatures known as undines must kill the men who betray them before returning to the water.

Shot with absolute assurance and tinged with the glowing photography of Petzold’s regular associate Hans Fromm, the film is painted with an intriguing surrealism that counterbalances the quotidian details. It plays like an intimate, well-composed poem whose stanzas are crafted with demonstrative expressions and real intensity.

The waltzing adagio movement of J.S. Bach’s Concerto in D Minor reinforces both the oneiric and the emotional force of the scenes. However, in a stroke of genius, Petzold infuses some irresistible humor when least expected - you have here an opportunity to see a CPR being performed at the rhythm of Bee Gee’s Stayin’ Alive.

Ms. Beer, who is absolutely marvelous here, teams up again with Rogowski for a Petzold film - the first time happened in Transit, three years ago, with equally good results.
Undine is not just an imaginative fairy tale; it’s also a love letter to Berlin and its urban development. Highly recommended.

Luz (2019)

Direction: Tilman Singer
Country: Germany

Luz, the debut feature from German writer/director Tilman Singer is a psychological horror movie, not too gory, not too stuffed, and holding a steady grip throughout. The filmmaking style deserves praise, especially if we take into account the minimalism of the story and its schematic course. However, its characters are thinly sketched.

Simon Waskow’s score has already announced some creepiness during the initial long shot. The story takes place in Germany and the worried moves of Chilean cab driver Luz Carrara (Luana Velis) in a desolate police station anticipate something strange and uncontrollable. In fact, the blaspheming girl, who apparently doesn’t speak German, is about to be psychologically evaluated under the attentive supervision of cops Bertillon (Nadja Stübiger) and Olarte (Johannes Benecke). For that, they hire the services of Dr. Rossini (Jan Bluthardt), an experienced psychiatrist and hypnotherapist who will try to find more about the traumatic past of the woman. What these dedicated agents of the law don’t suspect is that Luz’s former schoolmate, Nora Vanderkurt (Julia Riedler), had already been in contact with the imprudent doctor, passing the demon that has been possessing his body.

The tale draws its best moments from a bar scene where Nora approaches Rossini, but, suddenly, things decline as our attention shifts to the interrogation room, which becomes foggy, in a tacky attempt to intensify fear and claustrophobia. The truth emerges from the shadows but not convincingly.

Singer relies on simplistic yet well-composed images to create some titillation. Yet, the film never reaches those spine-chilling levels we all crave. If only the director had found the time to dig a better ending and engender better sequences to mere plot points with potential, maybe Luz could have been the surprise of the year within the limits of a saturated horror genre. Lamentably, it didn’t happen, but I would definitely select Singer as a director to watch in the future.

Never Look Away (2018)

Direction: Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck
Country: Gerrmany

The new film from German filmmaker Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, who showed capable of the best with The Lives of Others (2006) and the worst with The Tourist (2010), brings together Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, and Paula Beer in an epic post-war drama mounted with solid production values, melodramatic brush strokes, and archetypal storytelling. Despite the crowd-pleasing schemes commonly associated with this type of film, Koch gives us some good reasons to keep seated in our chairs and watch it.

The story follows the romance between Kurt Barnet (Schilling), a struggling painting student artistically tied up to the dominant socialist realism of the time, and Ellie Seebrand (Beer), the daughter of a savvy, if unscrupulous, gynecologist and a proud member of the SS medical corps, Professor Carl Seebrand (Koch). It had been the latter who, in 1937 in Dresden, marked Kurt’s mentally-ill aunt, Elizabeth May (Saskia Rosendahl), to be annihilated.

Kurt is admitted in a liberal art school in Dusseldorf but keeps being haunted by memories of a never-to-be-forgotten past. There, he will find an incomparable opportunity to speak with his own voice and build a real life with Ellie. But none of that can be achieved without sacrifice and tolerance, especially with his obnoxious father-in-law in control of their lives.

Donnersmarck drew inspiration from visual artist Gerhard Richter. This is a grand story, yet perhaps too lustrously depicted to work in full. I was never bored, though.

Styx (2019)

Direction: Wolfgang Fischer
Country: Germany / Austria

In Greek mythology, Styx is a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld. You won’t find a deity or a river in Austrian Wolfgang Fischer’s sophomore film, but the immense sea and an unforgettable, shocking discovery that will forever mark the life of an adventurous woman sailor.

The experienced, hands-on 40-year-old doctor Rike (Susanne Wolff) resolves to abandon the stress of emergency medical night shifts in Gibraltar to embark on a solo sailing trip to the small tropical island of Ascension. She learned about the place's artificial jungle from a book by Charles Darwin. Expecting to find some sort of paradise on Earth, it’s hell that appears in front of her, not due to a storm that after a certain time shook her yacht with violence, but when she faces the sad reality of a fishing boat overloaded with dehydrated, famished, and sick African refugees. Several attempts to ask for help were made via radio and all she got was a voice saying: “back up and don’t intervene”. That’s when Rike envisions a risky scheme to force the authorities to get involved and do their job.

The monstrosity of letting debilitated people dying in the sea is disgusting. This is just an episode amidst many that show the cruelty of the world we’re living in. Should some lives matter more than others?

Fischer puts you right in the middle of the action, infusing tension and anguish with a story that demonstrates the complacency of developed countries in the face of painful realities lived by human beings in other parts of the world.

The film has been compared to J.C. Chandor’s All is Lost, yet Rike felt powerless and helpless rather than really lost at sea and with her life in danger. The ending didn’t exceed expectations, but this was a piercingly realistic cinematic experience based on an outrageous true story.

Western (2018)

Direction: Valeska Grisebach
Country: Germany

Blending work-related issues with personal quests, German writer/director Valeska Grisebach (Longing) has in Western, her best film. You can think of it as if the proletarian realism of Ken Loach had fused with the culture clashes depicted by Jacques Audiard. The film title is a suitable epigram, playing with the east-west differences and with the western genre through the semblance and the actions of its main character.

The quiet Meinhard (Meinhard Neumann) is a German construction worker who accepts joining a specialized crew, headed by the antagonistic Vincent (Reinhardt Wetrek), to build a hydroelectric plant in a small rural Bulgarian village, next to the border with Greek border. He soon clarifies his boss about his intentions: he’s there only for the money.

Taking advantage of the reduced working flow - there’s no water on the site to be mixed with the cement and a 40-ton shipment of gravel was stolen - he sets out to the village mounted on an old white horse he borrowed without permission. When the conflict was expected, Reinhard surprises us by gaining the trust of the suspicious villagers. His comfortable posture and friendly manners were able to beat the barrier of communication. Thus, he was more than welcome to be part of this small Bulgarian family.

The horse owner, Adrian (Syuleyman Alilov Letifov), becomes a close buddy, appointing him as his personal bodyguard. This happened after Meinhard had mentioned to some residents he fought in Afghanistan and Africa as a legionnaire. However, a number of unexpected incidents, involving both locals and his own crew, will mar his staying with glumness.

The story takes its time to develop and requires patience at every languid turn, but once you let yourself be enveloped by its mood, it’s all rewards. Neumann does an impressive work here, embracing his first role with natural ease and assuming great part of the responsibility in making of the tale a grounded and sincere experience. On the other hand, Grisebach is an intelligent storyteller, showing to have a meticulous eye for detail. The realistically filmed Western dissects its male characters, digging into their souls and revealing a human perspective that, even suggesting a vast array of emotions, never hand them on a plate. Actually, it feels great having to search for them.

Transit (2018)

Direction: Christian Petzold
Country: Germany / France

German filmmaker Christian Petzold (Barbara; Phoenix) shows a predisposition to structure his dramas in a ravishing, oblique way. His latest effort, Transit, is set in the port city of Marseille during the Nazi invasion.

The central character is Georg (Franz Rogowski), a German Jew on the run, who finds a viable way to flee the country without arousing the suspicion of the authorities. He is in possession of a document issued by the Mexican consulate to another man that can guarantee him a transit visa. In truth, he stole the identity of that man, Weidel, a celebrated poet who didn’t resist the Nazi pressure and committed suicide in Paris. Weidel’s charming wife, Marie (Paula Beer), is also stuck in Marseille, waiting anxiously for him, so they can depart to Mexico, the much desired safe harbor.

In the meantime, and before meeting Marie in strange circumstances, Georg visits the wife and son of a comrade who succumbed to the manhunt. The woman, Melissa (Maryam Zaree), is mute and was born in the Maghreb; her sweet kid, Driss (Lilien Batman), loves to play soccer, forging a strong bond with Georg, whom he gladly adopts as a father figure. Both are illegal refugees in the country, which becomes a terrible inconvenience when Driss gets sick. Opportunely, Georg offers himself to find doctor Richard (Godehard Giese), who is having an affair with Marie but is planning to leave her soon to embrace a bigger medical cause in Europe. Marie is visibly confused. She wants her husband so badly that, for a couple of times, she had mistaken him for Georg, the man who strategized about saving himself by impersonating him. However, Georg decides to alter his plans after falling for her.

Georg can thank his lucky stars because in some cases, despair leads gradually to tragedy, especially if you are stranded and hopeless. In different situations, tragedies just come with fate. Ironically, “Road to Nowhere” by The Talking Heads plays during the final credits.

The extraordinary performances magnify the complexity of the characters, surrounding them with empathy. Still, you will find emotional pain in every each of them. It’s outstanding how quietly the director gets close to these people.

The plot, adapted by Petzold from Anna Seghers’ WW2 novel to fit the present-day, can be challenging sometimes, but the articulation of the scenes and that pleasurable ambiguity in the narrative turn the film into an interesting watching. Don’t expect many thrills, though, since the director is more interested in offering a wide tonal palette of emotional reflections than really shocking us directly through the images.

In The Fade (2018)

Directed by Fatih Akin
Country: Germany / France

Turkish-born German filmmaker Fatih Akin, author of gems like “Head-On” and “The  Edge of Heaven”, thoughtfully returns to the drama genre after last year’s so-so coming-of-age adventure “Goodbye Berlin”.

“In The Fade” stars Cannes-awarded actress Diane Kruger (“Unknown”, “Inglorious Basterds”, “Disorder”) as Katja Sekerci, a woman living in Hamburg, whose happy life is suddenly shaken by the assassination of her husband and 6-year-old child in a Nazi conspiracy consummated with a nail-bomb attack. The first images show us Nuri Sekerci (Numan Acar), a Kurdish living in Germany, being applauded as he leaves his prison cell all dressed up to get married to Katja. Although convicted for drug trafficking in the past, when the film advances to the first of its three chapters, we see him completely rehabilitated, managing his own tax office, where he also helps fellow countrymen with document translations.

A certain day, Katja arrives at his office, located in the Turkish neighborhood, to drop off their son before going to meet her best friend Birgit (Samia Muriel Chancrin). On her way out, she notices a young woman, later identified as Edda Moller (Hanna Hilsdorf), placing a brand new bike in front of the office and then walking away. The bicycle was purposely left unchained. Later in the evening, she went to pick them up, but was informed there was an explosion in that specific area. It was an agonizing shock when the two unrecognizable bodies of a man and a kid were confirmed to be the members of her family. This harrowing reality impels her to take drugs in order to numb the pain. 

Officer Gerrit Reetz (Henning Peker) is the one leading the investigation and wonders if Nuri was still working for the Turkish Mafia as a dealer. Was this a retaliation? If not, who could have done such an evil act? The Eastern Europeans? A Nazi faction? 

Following a dramatic court session where the culprits are nauseatingly acquitted of the killings using a false alibi, Katja, in the impossibility of appeasing her soul and find relief, chases them down, traveling to Greece with a radical plan.

Akin’s approach favors as much the tense moments as the emotionally disturbing ones, only sporadically deflecting to unimaginative territories through superfluous maneuvers. Probably the most gratuitous scene happens when Katja attempts to kill herself, saved at the last minute by the phone call of her lawyer and family friend Danilo Fava (Denis Moschitto). 

Still, “In The Fade” was conceived with strong performances and never softens up, even when giving signs of momentarily wobbling. After the tragic, visceral finale, and before the closing credits, the director points out the xenophobe crimes committed by the members of Neo-Nazi group National Socialism Underground.

Submergence (2018)

Directed by Wim Wenders
Country: Germany / USA / other

72-year-old Wim Wenders is one of the inevitable figures of the European cinema. His work includes masterpieces such as “Paris Texas”, “Wings of Desire”, “Kings of the Road”, and “Alice In the Cities”, which deserved all the accolades they got. However, the current phase of his directorial career is not so strong, with the fictional films failing to match the much more compelling documentaries like "Pina" and "The Salt of the Earth". This fact hampers him from standing out again as a primary filmmaker.

Based on the novel of the same name by J.M. Ledgard and with a questionable adaptation from Erin Digman (“The Last Face”), “Submergence” depicts a bitter memory of a fine romance lived in the French Normandy between Danielle Flinders (Alicia Vikander), a biomathematician, and James Moore (James McAvoy), a Scottish agent under the cover of a water engineer. While she is on the verge of embarking on a pioneering diving into the deep Atlantic in a submersible to collect valuable samples, he is heading to East Africa in a classified mission. Once there, Somali jihadist fighters make him a hostage, and torture becomes a painful endurance.

Immersed in flashbacks, the drama lacks intensity, being progressively engulfed by irregular, often dispassionate waves of longing. The anguished Danielle can’t focus on her work since James became unreachable. In her mind, she questions if he just lost interest in her or is simply stuck somewhere with no communication. Yet, after some time, she lets go the latter possibility. James’ imprisonment, filled with numerous backs and forths and torturous oscillations, fails to engage us in its dualities: friend or enemy, salvation or perdition, compassion or aggression. Also, the pace doesn't facilitate our empathy.

The episodes involving the characters have no other link tying them besides the ephemeral love affair, and Wenders couldn’t avoid falling into a protracted, unexciting, and often sloppy exercise that never brought much satisfaction or hope.

The emotional agitation resultant from lovesickness could have pushed the film forward, but the heavy-handed narrative together with Spanish-born Fernando Velázquez’s annoying score make us all stuck too, waiting for the pointless ending to arrive.