Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Phoenix
2014
***
Director: Christian Petzold
Cast: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf, Michael Maertens, Imogen Kogge

After the war, a disfigured Holocaust survivor returns to Berlin with a new face to look for her husband, who turned her in to the Nazis. He doesn't recognise the woman, but instead wants to use her to get his hands on the (believed to be) dead wife's money. The fifth collaboration between Christian Petzold and Nina Hoss is an interesting but flawed film noir which follows in the footsteps of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. This heartbreaking story cries out for big emotions, but Petzold treats it as a purely intellectual exercise. The central premise that a man does not recognize his own wife when only her face has changed stretches credibility to its limits. Nevertheless, Nina Hoss gives another stellar performance and the final scene is very powerful. Loosely based on Hubert Monteilhet's 1961 novel Le Retour des Cendres, which was previously filmed as Return from the Ashes (1965).