As I said in my previous post, my mother always said, “Start
out the way you mean to go on.”
I watched the film Barbara on New Year’s Day. I watched
Phoenix the day after. It would be wonderful indeed if I could continue my
movie watching year with films as visually beautiful and as moral compass-ish
as these two. Even if my husband, Derrill, did say, “What?! Subtitles?”
Both movies are directed by Christian Petzold and both star
Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld. Both have gorgeous photography, but each has a
different plot and a different feel to it. Both are beyond excellent.
First, Barbara. This movie is set in East Germany in the
1980s. For those of us who lived through the cold war, our news consciousness
was shot through with tales of people who had risked everything to escape the
iron curtain countries. I remember one family who built a hot air balloon and
successfully flew over the Berlin wall. I had a math instructor in college who
had come through in a wagonful of cabbages. We forgave him his intense manner
and sarcasm because of that.
What I’m trying to say is that I brought something to this
film that young moviegoers might not bring, for the pivot point of this film is
that Barbara, an East German doctor, is desperate to get out. Her punishment
for even filling out an official request to leave is exile to a provincial
hospital on the Baltic Sea.
Nina Hoss as Barbara is all angles, competent, and brittle. Ronald
Zehrfeld as fellow doctor André Reiser is—cuddly isn’t the word I want. Safe? Maybe
not safe, but watching him gives you the feeling of a safe harbor on the Baltic
Sea.
One of the beauties of Barbara, and there are many, is that
it trusts the intelligence of its audience. We are able to read Barbara’s character and
that of her fellow doctor, André Reiser, through their nuanced conversations
and body language.
The English subtitles are sometimes hard to make out when
they’re set against a light backdrop. I would say it might be a good idea to
read through the plot outline on Wikipedia before you begin. It won’t destroy
the movie for you, for the way Christian Petzold gets from Barbara’s arrival at
the hospital to the scene on the beach when she makes her sacrifice is
masterful. Knowing the plot will leave you free to concentrate on the wonderful
dialog (even in translation) and the photography.
I must say that that last scene has stayed with me. You don’t
need to speak German to understand what Hoss and Zehrfeld say with their eyes.
Now to Phoenix. Ah! What a splendid film. I watched it twice
in as many days. It was better the second time, because I was able to watch Ronald
Zehrfeld, as Johnny, miss all the important clues
because of his tunnel vision, his hell-bent desire for his late wife’s money.
The film is set just after World War II. Nelly returns from
the camps wounded in the face and is brought to a hospital by her friend Lene
for reconstructive surgery. Nelly is anxious to find her husband, Johnny.
Before the war she was a cabaret singer and he was her accompanist. As she goes
looking for him, she finds him bussing tables at The Phoenix, a spot frequented
by American soldiers.
Though the surgeons tried to recreate how she had looked
before, Johnny doesn’t recognize Nelly. However, the surgeons have done well
enough that he asks her to impersonate his wife. There is enough of a
resemblance that he feels he can train her to pass as Nelly.
Lene warns Nelly that Johnny betrayed her, a Jewess, to the
police, and it is because of him that she was arrested and sent to the camps.
Nelly refuses to believe it. However, she doesn’t reveal her identity to Johnny
but instead goes along with his scheme to present her as his wife so he can get
her inheritance, since she alone of her family ‘survived.’
Neither Nina Hoss nor Ronald Zehrfeld in Phoenix resemble the characters they play
in Barbara. Nelly certainly isn’t competent and brittle. She’s broken and
desperate. Johnny is desperate, too. He’s not broken, but he’s psychologically
and spiritually maimed, perhaps haunted. No safe harbor there.
Both of these are great movies, must see movies. They’re
movies you should see with friends and then discuss. They’re grown-up movies.
Not because of language or sexual content, but because they deal with serious
subjects and themes. But both are absolutely must-see films.
