Phoenix

Sundance Selects | Release Date: July 24, 2015

7.8	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 99 Ratings

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netflicAug 10, 2015

It's a movie about a Holocaust survivor looking for her husband who betrayed her.
The movie has a very nice sound track, cinematography is decent, performance is adequate.
But can a realistic movie be good if it's script does not make muchIt's a movie about a Holocaust survivor looking for her husband who betrayed her.
The movie has a very nice sound track, cinematography is decent, performance is adequate.
But can a realistic movie be good if it's script does not make much sense? Even taken into account the possibility and probability of emotional distress leading to illogical actions, still it is difficult to understand main characters' behavior.
Times and times again I said to myself "what?" in disbelief.
Maybe the main idea was interesting but it was not well thought through and as a result looks and feels artificial. Overall I find the movie at best mediocre.… Expand

1 of 3 users found this helpful12

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GreatMartinAug 11, 2015

“They don’t make them like the did in the old days, “ is the cry of many senior film buffs, including me. In “Phoenix” the director, and co-writer with Harun Farocki, Christian Petzold certainly tries. With bits of Alfred Hitchcock’s“They don’t make them like the did in the old days, “ is the cry of many senior film buffs, including me. In “Phoenix” the director, and co-writer with Harun Farocki, Christian Petzold certainly tries. With bits of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” here, Kander and Ebb’s, with Fosse’s, “Cabaret” there, this movie, as film noir, cries out for a Barbara Stanwyck or Lana Turner and to have been filmed in black and white.

The story of a woman, Nelly, who had her face damaged by a gunshot wound in a German concentration camp has her face reconstructed after the war and goes looking for her husband Johnny. Upon finding him he doesn’t recognize her and tries to get her involved with a get rich scheme by having her impersonate his late wife so he can get her inheritance that was left by her relatives who died in the war.

“As Time Goes By” is an important part of “Casablanca” as are “Again” in “Road House” and “Que Sera, Sera” in “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and this movie too has a song that becomes an important part of the story, by Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash, called “Speak Low” which is heard throughout the film and impacts the ending.

Nina Hoss, as Nelly, may not have the sexuality of a Lana Turner, and is a beauty in her own right, but she is the equal of Barbara Stanwyck in the acting department. She can and does say a lot with a look, her eyes through bad or good and the way she holds herself. You watch her progression from a scared, downtrodden woman to the beautiful, confident woman she was before the war. Ronald Zehrfeld, as her husband Johnny, who thinks that she can pass for his wife that could help him put his scam over has doubts about who she really may be but not enough to stop him. Zehrfeld has a romantic innocence that makes him seem less the villain than he is.

Another major, but undeveloped, role is Nina Kunzendorf as Lene, who does a lot for Nelly but their relationship isn’t quite defined and is unceremoniously out of the film before the halfway mark.

I was told by Allen that the film was an analogy of Germany after the war but I will admit it went right over my head! It might account for why I didn’t like the film as much as I expected to but it did introduce me to Hoss, Zehrfeld and Petzold enough for me to want to see the previous films they have made together.

“Phoenix” is a German film with (some poor such as ‘sit up‘ instead of ‘sit down‘) subtitles running 98 minutes.… Expand

1 of 3 users found this helpful12

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LowbrowCinemaAug 3, 2015

Director Christian Petzold and actress Nina Hoss have now brought us a string of accomplished films exploring Germany's past and present, culminating with the extraordinary BARBARA. What a disappoint it is to report on PHOENIX. A metaphoricalDirector Christian Petzold and actress Nina Hoss have now brought us a string of accomplished films exploring Germany's past and present, culminating with the extraordinary BARBARA. What a disappoint it is to report on PHOENIX. A metaphorical conception of a concentration camp survivor given a new face (literally) only to come back to Berlin to follow her husband, the man that betrayed her. PHOENIX is worthy of Sirk or Fassbinder. Petzold's direction is without merit and he gives one of our best actresses nothing to do. A total misfire that I found downright dull.… Expand

0 of 3 users found this helpful03

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