Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - Phoenix

Nina Hoss as Nelly in Phoenix

There have been many films since the end of WWII depicting various aspects and tragedies related to the concentration camps of Nazi Germany however few have addressed the question of the emotional issues, societal reaction and challenges if a Jewish survivor immediately returned to Germany after release from a camp. Director and screenwriter, Christian Petzold together with the late Harun Farocki has addressed this question with the film, Phoenix. The storyline is centred on camp survivor, Nelly (Nina Hoss) a former singer, who returns to the rubble of Berlin to try and reclaim her life. Disfigured from the last ditch effort of camp guards to kill her, Nelly has undergone facial reconstruction surgery and appears similar but not quite the same as her former self. She searches for her husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld) whom she believes is still alive in Allied Occupied Berlin, discovering him at the Phoenix Club. Johnny does not recognise her and believes that his wife is long dead in the camps. Intent on gaining her considerable inheritance (as all of Nina's Jewish family have perished), he concocts a plot to pass off this woman whom he believes is a Nelly lookalike without realising that it is his real wife.

This is a film strongly focussed on its key characters and less on their surroundings and settings. Nelly's journey to rediscover something of her former life is not without considerable emotional pain and loss. The realisation that her husband had a role in her capture by the Nazis lays the ground for a powerful  and brilliant finale. Nina Hoss is well cast as the vulnerable Nelly reaching a position of strength as she plots the moment and method to confront her husband.