Phoenix (2014)
First screened in March 2015 / Most recently screened in September 2015
Director: Christian Petzold. Cast: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf, Michael Maertens, Imogen Kogge, Kirsten Block, Eva Bay, Claudia Geisler-Bading, Daniela Holtz, Felix Römer, Frank Seppeler. Screenplay: Christian Petzold and Harun Farocki (based on the novel Le retour des cendres by Hubert Monteilhet). Twitter Capsule:
Proficient, yes, but surely the least interesting directorial approach imaginable to such ripe, contrived, nervy material.
Second Capsule:
I undervalued this the first time. Still unadventurous direction and still preposterous plotting, but lots under the hood.
VOR:③
Provoking enough in its postwar, back-from-the-dead conception that history students and Germanophiles will be intrigued. Still, few expansions of historical or melodramatic repertoire.
