Phoenix (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Phoenix (2014) – C. Petzold

Many are referring to this film as a contemporary film noir (neo-noir) but I’m not sure I see it.  Yes, the plot has strong similarities to the “returning veteran” subgenre, in which somebody like Alan Ladd returns from war to normal society and has trouble fitting back in, although in this case our protagonist is female, Nelly Lenz (played by Nina Hoss), a Jewish survivor returning from Auschwitz to the decimated German society of the 1940’s. This might make the film even darker than the typical noir, in fact.  Clearly, she has trouble fitting in, particularly because her face has been destroyed and subsequently rebuilt by a plastic surgeon.  She doesn’t quite look like herself, so even her husband doesn’t recognise her when she finally finds him.  So, she keeps her identity a secret.  He may or may not be trustworthy and might even have betrayed her to the Nazis.  When he suggests that she pretend to be his lost wife (presumed dead) so that he can apply for her fortune (held in abeyance by the Allies), she plays along (strong shades of Hitchcock’s Vertigo here).  Those that would hail this a noir seem to think that Nelly might either be out for revenge or might truly wish to subjugate herself to her husband, but Nina Hoss’s fragile performance never seems to suggest the former (to me), thus undercutting the noir edge. True, the final scene, a superb culmination of all that has gone before, grants Nelly more power/confidence, but this seems to well up in her rather than be suddenly revealed as a well-protected secret.  A separate strand of the plot also sees Nelly in counterpoint to another Jewish woman, possibly lesbian, who wants to resettle in the new Jewish state to be founded in Palestine, but in this case, Nelly cannot commit perhaps because she is still in the sway of her husband (or at least has unfinished business with him).  Apparently, this is the sixth collaboration between director Christian Petzold and actress Nina Hoss which suggests a back catalogue ready for mining.