GERMAN filmmaker Christian Petzold is little known in Australia. In 2013, I gave four stars to “Barbara” starring Nina Hoss who, in “Phoenix”, again plays a woman seeking to recover her soul and rebuild her psyche in the wreckage left from the totalitarian inhumanity of war.

Jewish singer Nelly has undergone facial reconstruction that has left her unrecognisable. Now with the help of mannish-looking Lena, she is seeking answers. Is her husband Johnny still playing piano in the Phoenix bar? Does he still love her? And was it he who betrayed her to the Nazis and Auschwitz?

Petzold’s construction of Berlin’s rubble before the wall divided the city sets a powerful sense of a nation striving to recover its cultural, economic and social feet. This woman, vulnerable, handsome rather than beautiful, reminds Johnny of the lost wife. Nelly wants to be with him, whether for his love or for the help he might give her in recovering her family’s wealth.

The plot develops without hurry. The film’s images depict the aftermath of war with clarity and credibility. Its human values are sombre. But despite offering us little by way of joy, “Phoenix” has enough enigmatic force to hold our attention all the way to Nelly’s revelation of a tiny, vital, piece of evidence seconds before the closing credits begin to roll.

At Palace Electric

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