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Ruth Sokolof Sept 11 – Oct 1, 2015

Phoenix

In German with English subtitles

Dir. Christian Petzold Germany, Poland 98 min PG-13

2014 IFC Films

This evocative and haunting drama, set in rubble-strewn Berlin in 1945, is like no other film about post–World War II Jewish-German identity. Revenge film or tale of romantic reconciliation? One doesn’t know until the superb closing scene of this marvel from Christian Petzold (Afire), one of the most important figures in contemporary German cinema.

After surviving Auschwitz, a former cabaret singer (Nina Hoss, in a dazzling, multilayered performance) has her disfigured face reconstructed and returns to her war-ravaged hometown to seek out her gentile husband, who may or may not have betrayed her to the Nazis. Without recognizing her, he enlists her to play his wife in a bizarre hall-of-shattered-mirrors story that is as richly metaphorical as it is preposterously engrossing.

Reviews
"This is cinema at its most ineffable and its most potent: a structure of gossamer and steel excavated from the debris of Europe’s history." –Sight and Sound

As part of our See Change initiative, we strive to showcase the work of women and non-binary individuals and their behind-the-scenes involvement in a production.

This film is edited by Bettina Böhler.

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