the audience applauded

Memorable, crazy movie

A different way of telling a story

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

At first I was quite resistant to this film. I thought, surely plastic surgery was not very good at the end of WWII? I thought surely there would be recognition where there apparently wasn't? Then I began to get it. I saw the poetry in this and how well it was handled. I saw the portrayal of an attempt to reconstruct not a face but of a life, a way of being, before it was destroyed by the Nazis.That destruction went very far, inevitably corrupting people and causing them to betray one another.Really this is a very powerful film and I urge anyone to watch it. At present this has a rating of 7.3 here at IMDb but this just tells us how films that appeal to teenagers tend to get high ratings whereas unfortunately truly great films like this one do not do so well.

For those commenters who deem "The Phoenix" unbelievable, with all due respect, you don't have a clue about the depth of trauma and denial in post-war Germany. I encourage you to read Farran Smith Nehme's discussion of the film, "Conversations with Christian Petzold's 'Phoenix," found on the rogerebert.com website. It's an excellent analysis of the film's background and milieu. Nehme also writes eloquently about the problem of suspension of disbelief when it comes to damaged characters living in extraordinary times; he alludes, for example, to Hitchcock's dismissal of the mindset of "the plausibles"--those literal-minded reviewers who often took exception to the logic or believability of his characters' choices. The great majority of critics, however, are smarter than that; for what makes the film absolutely riveting--and why it's received so much critical praise--is how the two main characters, due to their extraordinary historical moment, and the terrible acts they've done or been subjected to, close their eyes to things that seem perfectly obvious, yet also believe things that have no basis in reality. And the ending is unforgettable.

Phoenix goes to a time that haunts Germans and Jews alike- the aftermath of the Holocaust- and manages to do something different and make an impact. The film follows survivor Nelly, whose face has been destroyed in the camps and whose facial reconstruction has left her unrecognizable. She's still beautiful, as a friend points out, but that's not enough- she is no longer herself. She finds her husband, and disbelieving her friend's claim he's the one who betrayed her, stays close to him without revealing her identity. He notices her and by coincidence decides to make her over as the old Nelly, in order to collect her inheritance.In making a woman over in the likeness of another, and in fact the two women are one, Phoenix bears similarities to Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). But the two films go different places with the concept- Phoenix follows the woman, her desire to reclaim her old life and identity, her unwillingness to accept the truth about her husband, how or if she will take her revenge. (Vertigo is more a story about obsession). Her friend gives her a revolver for protection- you'd think that spells out the end, but the end is rather different, chilling and stunning. Phoenix is a film with a powerful voice and meaning, and shouldn't be overlooked.

Set in post WW2 Germany, we have Nelly (Nina Hoss), a Polish Jewish nightclub singer who survives the concentration camps, a facial bullet wound, and reconstructive surgery. She manages to return to her family, where her husband Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld) fails to recognise her. She plays a duplicitous game of intrigue and investigation, trying to determine if her husband had betrayed her to the Nazis. He plays similarly deceptive games, aiming to use the found Nelly as a substitute for his believed-to-be lost wife, to claim reparation for substantial assets stolen by the Nazis. Staged reunions, revelation of a possible last minute divorce – and then it ends. I thought it might have launched into a court based battle over identity, with a last minute plot twist of whether the divorce was valid, or even existed at all, making for a nail biter about whether the husband would share any prize money. This might have drawn some threads together and almost justified the premise that a husband wouldn't recognise his wife with some minor facial rearrangement. But no.Visually, it's really attractive, and most of the cast deliver their roles competently. But it's a flimsy house built on quicksand. On the plus side, it moves at a comfortable pace and wasn't boring. But I didn't find it convincing in the least.