A disfigured Holocaust survivor sets out to determine if the man she loved betrayed her trust.
Director:
Christian Petzold
From metacritic.com
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Title: Phoenix (2014)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Nina Hoss | ... | Nelly Lenz | |
| Ronald Zehrfeld | ... | Johnny Lenz | |
 |
Nina Kunzendorf | ... | Lene Winter |
| Trystan Pütter | ... | Soldat an der Brücke | |
| Michael Maertens | ... | Arzt | |
|
|
Imogen Kogge | ... | Elisabeth |
|
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Felix Römer | ... | Geiger |
| Uwe Preuss | ... | Clubbesitzer | |
| Valerie Koch | ... | Tänzerin | |
| Eva Bay | ... | Tänzerin | |
| Jeff Burrell | ... | Soldat im Club | |
|
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Nikola Kastner | ... | Junge Frau |
|
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Max Hopp | ... | Der Mann |
| Megan Gay | ... | Mitarbeiterin Zentralstelle Halensee | |
| Kirsten Block | ... | Wirtin | |
In the aftermath of WWII, Nelly, a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, horribly disfigured from a bullet wound in her face, undergoes a series of facial reconstruction surgeries and decides to find her husband Johnny who works at the Phoenix club in Berlin. Undoubtedly, Nelly is stunning, yet, her new self is beyond recognition, so Johnny, the man who may have betrayed her to the Nazis, will never imagine that the woman in front of him who bears an uncomfortable and unsettling resemblance to his late wife, is indeed her. Without delay, and with the intention to collect the deceased's inheritance, Nelly will go along with Johnny's plot and she will impersonate the dead woman, giving the performance of a lifetime before friends and relatives in a complex game of deceit, duplicity, and ultimately, seduction. In the end, during this masquerade, as the fragile and broken Nelly tries to find out whether Johnny betrayed her or not, she will have to dig deep into her wounded ... Written by Nick Riganas
The only weak aspect of this film is that the central idea is just not quite believable (albeit easily more believable than most mainstream films). Everything else was quite brilliant. There are plenty of films about Jews in Nazi Germany and a good few films set in the aftermath of world war 2. This is however the first film I have seen exploring the lives and emotions of Jews in post war Germany trying to reclaim their lost monies and contemplating where to spend their future lives. In this respect the film portrays two opposing views very powerfully. The acting, screen play, cinematography and direction is superb. I predicted aspects of the climax but the subtleties were a surprise (no spoilers here). Two of the three main roles are played by women, are strong characters and passes the Bechdel Test with in the first few minutes.