Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Kodie Bird True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

blumdeluxe "Phoenix" tells the story of a Schoah survivor, who undergoes medical surgery on her face and moves back into her old environment. There she meets her husband, who reportedly turned her in. He notices her similarity to his wife and hires her to play her to get his hands on her money. Now, reunited with her former husband, she begins to raises question in a bitter search for her old life.The plot is very powerful. It is a clever script that allows for big emotions, desperation and uncertainty. Sometimes I would have wished that these emotions would have been displayed even more to break into the rather calm tone of the film. However this is not just an addition to the cinematographic topic but it is a whole new approach, produced very professionally and looking worthy.All in all this is a film you should give a try for it is outstanding in its way and doesn't copy others. For me the last bit was missing to make it even more moving and lasting but it nevertheless is a great piece of filmmaking.

mike goodwin awesome film.....good depiction of post-war Germany, but premise was hard to buy....how could a man not actually recognize his own freakin' wife? Sure, her face is completely different, but he would come (quickly) to recognize the rest of her for god's sake. The ending was, by every means, anti-climactic.

nqure 'Phoenix' is based on a melodramatic novel by Hubert Monteilhet which was made into a 60s film about a Holocaust survivor returning to find her former lover, believing her to be dead, now involved with her daughter, leading to a tale of betrayal & murder. In 'Phoenix' the emotional story takes precedence over the melodrama/thriller elements, the film about the emotional journey of a survivor & the husband who may or may not have betrayed her.The film begins with a film-noir atmosphere, though it's quite apparent that this isn't a thriller but more a study of love, betrayal & deception. It's slow burning in pace, with hints & revelations rather than convoluted plot twists. The film is framed by two key songs, Cole Porter's 'Night & Day', one of romantic longing , the other Kurt Weill's 'Speak Low'.Nelly is a singer who has survived Auschwitz but suffered physical disfigurement so that her face has to undergo reconstruction. She is supported by her friend Lene, who plans a new future for them in Palestine. Lene asks Nelly to sing but she no longer has the strength & confidence to do so. Nelly is also obsessed by her husband & accompanist, Johannes 'Johnny' Lenz ('Johnny' conjuring up 'Surabaya Johnny', another cabaret song), who now works as a bottle-collector (& possible pimp?) at the Phoenix night-club frequented by US servicemen. The hues of the club are shot in red, haunting & dream-like ('Only mad-men can enter', Steppenwolf) with echoes of 'Red Road', another film about a woman in pursuit of a man.Nelly is still in love with the husband, who she cannot bring herself to believe betrayed her to the authorities despite Lene's misgivings. Lene is protective of Nelly, even giving her a revolver; a detail which proves to have tragic significance later though not in the way we expect. Nelly encounters Johannes once again, who is struck at once by the likeness she bears to the wife he now believes is dead. And so begins a ruse to use Esther, the alias used by Nelly, to act like his wife so that he can use her to claim her fortune.Nelly, acting out her role as Esther, goes along with the scheme, perhaps as a way of reliving the past & getting close to Johannes, even though this is simply yet another deception (self) within a deception. Johannes clearly has no understanding of what victims endured; the dramatic irony is that we, the audience, are probably more aware than Nelly is. He gives Esther/Nelly, the chic Parisian dress his 'dead' wife used to wear, the flowers resembling lips (Judas' kiss). Nelly is emotionally confused at how a survivor could wear such a bright dress (as if her true self is speaking). Johannes brushes her qualms aside, revealing that he has no understanding of the emotional/psychological suffering a survivor has gone through – in contrast to Lene who will pay the ultimate price.Trapped in the past, Nelly has survived Auschwitz but emotionally she has remained in 1944 before her arrest. She remains quite literally in the dark when she confides in Lene at night, who struggles to make her see the truth. On a bike ride with Johannes, she murmurs languidly that if he betrayed his wife, then it must have been inadvertent. But she is abruptly brought to reality by the loss of the one person who showed her genuine love & support & leaves her damning proof of Johannes' guilt. It could be seen as another betrayal, this time of trust.The film is about not only a physical disfigurement but the moral one that has taken place within Johannes himself. There is one scene where Nelly & Johannes make their preparations in a hotel room & Nelly watches him through the frosted glass: she now sees through him, or perhaps the blurred outline suggests she never really knew him.The final confrontation & 'revenge' is low-key but perhaps all the more powerful for that rather than contrived melodrama. Nelly, who has been hesitant & reluctant to sing, sings 'Speak Low' which becomes a song of farewell. The final image is striking of a woman walking out of a door, bathed in sunlight. Nelly finally sees that the past can be no more. She has been re-born emotionally, so to speak.

zacknabo One of the international darlings of the New Berlin Film School, Petzold, strikes gold again with Phoenix a twisted Vertigo-ian tale of obsession, identity and a brutal examination of marriage set against the backdrop of bombed out, postwar Berlin. Petzold regular Nina Hoss plays Nelly Lenz, a disfigured concentration camp survivor who is (somewhat) unrecognizable after having her face reconstructed. Once Nelly is well enough she begins a search through the city to find her non-Jewish husband Johnny—played by another Petzold familiar Ronald Zehrfeld—who may or may not have turned Nelly into the Nazis. It is truly a yarn and only grows more complex, bewildering, yet engrossing as the film continues. In terms of plot Petzold has asked the audience to accept a lot…and I mean a lot. Sure. There are a few plot holes along the way, but if the audience makes the stretch to buy the conceit Petzold is selling they will be gratefully rewarded.Quite possibly the most refreshing quality of Phoenix is its melodramatic qualities in a day and age where melodramas just aren't made well. Maybe the term "melodrama" is too strong, but the film certainly does portray some tropes of melodrama. Phoenix visually does bare some resemblance to 1950s Hollywood but the polished, meticulous, "constructed-realism" (which falls just right of the hardcore realism that seems to be the dominant brand of our time) of the interiors and bombed out buildings recalls Fassbinder's melodramas after he fell in love with the films of Douglas Sirk. The color schemes are rich, heightening muted tones and accentuating primary colors, as seen at the Phoenix Club in the American-sector of the city that shines a vibrant, neon blood red. Each color scheme seems to fit every mood to perfection and the wreckage of the city physically and morally works as a perfect mirroring metaphor for the main characters. The performances are perfect. They are rich and refrained. Zehrfeld is wonderful lost in moral ambiguity and at unmasking his demons subtly and with earnest. Hoss and Zehrfeld definitely have a great working chemistry as they worked together in Petzold's last Barbara. As the story progresses the dance the two actors do only deepens. Nelly, who is going by the name Esther, is transforming—at the direction of her unknowing husband—into the Nelly that existed before the war. The obsession comes from Nelly. She will not accept the direction in which all signs are pointing. Johnny only wants to use "Esther" to come back as Nelly so they can receive a survivor's check… I refrain from going to deep and giving away spoilers. What is important is that Petzold is most certainly an artist to keep an eye on, a reputation which he has already established and old perpetuates with the accomplishment of this lush, psychological melodrama that beckons to a time past in film history. In Phoenix he has crafted a complex, flawed, beautiful and heart-wrenching film that makes us question the bounds of love and personal identity and how the foundations of these concepts can be shaken by the larger context of the outside world—in this case WWII and the Holocaust. Though the plot may be a bit much, with some holes here and there, Petzold never lets the story get out of hand, maintaining a very deliberate pace that moves the story along, keeps the complexities of the narrative taut and clear, all the while building tension step by step; tension that reaches the most profound understated crescendo that should leave any viewer stunned.