Set directly after the end of World War II, Christian Petzold's Phoenix tells the story of Nelly, a concentration-camp survivor, who requires major facial reconstructive surgery. After having the operation, and against her friend's best judgement, Nina returns to postwar ravaged Berlin, wandering the streets in search of her husband Johhny, a man who may have been the one responsible for turning her into the Nazis. Eventually she does find him, but he doesn't recognize her, though he proposes a plan due to "her resemblance to his wife". Christain Petzold's Phoenix uses a pulpy premise to deliver powerful film about the way people and nations warp their perspectives in order to move forward and keep on surviving. Lene, the woman who was with Nelly all the way through her surgery, doesn't want Nelly to have anything to do with her husband, angry at Nelly's husband and a country that could turn on its own citizens, and not simply trying to move on and overlook what happened. In a sense, Lene symbolizes he brutal moral realities that some people have trouble dealing with, while Fanny symbolizes those who succumb to the need to identify with an oppressor. This is what makes the film great, with Phoenix capturing how Nelly really has two seperate identities, one before she was persecuted for being Jewish, where her husband and friend's adored her, to afterwards, where she was arrested and sent to a concentration game. This is a film that can feel almost like a psychological horror film for stretches, asNelly deceives herself, playing along with Johnny's plan to get her money, almost as if she is falling in love all over again. Nelly feels the need to fit in, but while the film technically remains ambiguous to the fact of whether Johnny turned her into the Nazis, it couldn't be more clear due to a powerful ending. Raising some interesting perspects about post World War II, specifically around German citizens of Jewish descent, Christian Petzold's Phoenix is a powerful examination of post war trauma which features another stellar performance from Nina Hoss.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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