CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Benas Mcloughlin Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Rolf Peters This might have been a very intriguing movie but for the lacklustre plot.To write a movie script for a film like this needs the kind of intuition and knowledge one finds in Tarkovsky, Alain Renais or Luis Buñuel.This is a slight movie in which the director Christian Petzold should have been able to carry off.There is some intertextuality nudging in the direction of Tarkovsky (verdant tree swaying leitmotivs)but the movie never really gets airborne. It's dogged by repetitive mis en scene and dull dialogue and the script never exploits the possibilities of the plot.This is certainly not a bad movie, it just can't live up to the aspiration of its essential donnee and "surprise" if tacked on denouement.

hasosch This is an attempt at an interpretation to a movie which I consider a highlight amongst the movies released in the last couple of years. Since an interpretation implies spoilers, my text is full of them. However, given the chance that I am wrong, the spoilers are dissolving by reading. Therefore, best read this text after you have watched "Yella".It is a gruesome picture that we can see in older European movies: The farmer grabs a ax and cuts off the head of the poor chicken. Whenever such a situation is portrayed truthfully, then one sees that the trunk of the chicken still flutters around for a good bit of time, before the heart stops and gives the final release out of life. All this you do not see in this movie, thanks the heaven, but the question arises what happens in the brain when the body is dead. Is it true that the death of the heart blows out the last gleaming of brain-activities, or is it rather so, that there are relays in the brain that gather all the present information together, not according to the logic of logic, but to the logic of our dreams, everything unreeling in enormous speed until the brain stops because the last feedbacks from the heart-streams who are still in the body, are ebbed away? After Yella is more or less hijacked by her former husband, he wants to kill him- and herself by driving with the car over a bridge and precipitating into the river. However, we see, how first Yella and then Ben come out, exhausted but alive. Interestingly enough, shortly after, Yella reaches the train that she wanted to take for getting to her new job: Not only was the place of the accident far away from the railway-station, but neither did she loose her high-heels in the water nor are her stockings dirty. The three "clue-men" she meets in and around her new job belong to the same type of men. In the hotel, nobody knows about the reservation of her room that she had made some days ago. In a conference with business partners she knows like a psychic that these partners are betrayers and have even profited from the bankruptcy of her husband. We also hear three times a noise like from an airplane after the cry of a raven. Every time the scene changes, like the acts in a stage play. Although it turns out that the manager who gave her the new job, has been fired meanwhile, she manages to jump from part-time job to part-time job in order to prove her that she is capable to manage her life without the "help" of her husband. However, when the film ends, one sees almost the same scenery as at the beginning, after the car with her and her husband crashed into the river. But there is now just one thing: Both Yella and Ben are dead. Obviously, this film by Christian Petzold is the attempt to reconstruct the fragile time between a lethal accident and the death, so-to-say a mental geography of the never-land between beginning and end of death. This is so fascinatingly done in this movie, that my recommendation is unlimited.

finnn I thoroughly enjoyed this film with its easy pace and moments of emptiness - but it really reminded me a lot of the 1962 version of "Carnival of Souls". You have the car driven off the bridge, the recurring musical theme, the constant drawing to the water, her acceptance of a job after travelling there after the crash, the way her life gradually corrupts despite her being given a second chance and the final moments where she's discovered to have died in the original crash after all. The two films aren't so similar that I was certain it was a remake, in many ways guessing if it was a supernatural story or not made it more interesting to watch.

viljar-1 The movie is well-shot, but in no way does that compensate for a future story. The problem is that there is no good direction in the film. We don't know why Yella separates from her husband, and as such we don't know what she's running away from, nor do we know where she is heading. Usually, not knowing where the film is going is something I enjoy, but here, it all seems pointless, as we don't even know where the character is coming from.The opening sequence, where Ben follows Yella in his car does set a tone, but I think it does not satisfactorily explain why Yella wants to move away from him. To some extent, it doesn't even seem like Yella wants to lose him: at two points Ben breaks into her hotel room, and Yella seems far too acquiescent. One plot hole, at least to me, was how on earth did he manage to get into her hotel room?!? I doubt he just walked up to the reception and asked for the key. Afterwards, Yella doesn't seem to do anything further about it: she doesn't ask for her room to be changed, or even seek advice from anyone.Yella's 'dodgy job' isn't explained well either, all we know is that there are negotiations, and envelopes of money are exchanged. To some extent, this is acceptable, because Yella isn't given any good explanation of what's happening, and so, we can also be left in the dark. But, considering how much of the film seems to take place in fancy boardrooms, some slight revelation, in due time, of what is actually going on would've been appreciated.The two lead characters live in a hotel, and what struck me is that neither of them ever close their doors. This is puzzling, especially considering that Yella is, it would seem, attempting to leave her stalker ex. Even more so when the ex has proved that he is capable of entering her room, even when the door is closed. These hotel doors left ajar did provide for one point where I thought 'now the fun begins', and that is when Yella leaves her room and seeks out her companion. Finally it seemed that she took some initiative and would be in charge of her own life, and not drift around being controlled by others. (To that point, it had always been her companion seeking her out.) Yet, what followed was just a parade of new board rooms, with Yella playing second fiddle.When Yella proclaims her love to her new-found companion, I lost any sympathy I had for her, because it is obvious that she is the typical weak female, falling for 'the bad guy', and she doesn't even try to change her fate. After leaving the stalker bad guy, she falls for the bad guy who steals money from his employer, and seems to hope that all of a sudden life will become better.