Directed by Christian Petzold. Reviewed by Paul Sorrell

In the June 2013 issue of Tui Motu magazine, I reviewed Barbara, a film set in East Germany in the 1980s that celebrated the power of compassion and selflessness to overcome a repressive environment. Barbara was directed by Christian Petzold and starred Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld, and Petzold and his two leads have come together again in Phoenix. A more complex and nuanced piece than Barbara, Phoenix is, as the title suggests, the story of a woman who comes back from the dead.

The film is set in Berlin in 1945 amid the ruins of war, with thousands of displaced people, traumatised and often gravely injured, filtering back from Nazi concentration camps. One such is “Esther” or Nelly Lenz, a German–Jewish nightclub singer who was apparently betrayed and abandoned by her husband, Johnny. Despite this, she is desperate to find him in the chaos of the bombed-out city. Against all the odds, she comes across him working in a downtown bar.

Despite the evidence mounting against Johnny, Nelly is still deeply in love with him and sets out to test his love for her. Failing to recognise her as the result of facial reconstruction surgery (and here we have to suspend our credulity), Johnny schools her to become the Nelly he once knew — whom he believes died in the camps — so that he can stage-manage her dramatic return and claim a valuable legacy that he promises to share with her.

Improbable as this story line sounds, it provides the setting for a subtle, complex and deeply moving exploration of the nature of love and identity. By gradually slipping into her role as herself, Nelly is able to act out her feelings for Johnny at the same time as probing the secrets of the past. A further layer of complexity is provided by Nelly’s relationship with Lene, another Jewish survivor, who urges her to abandon the duplicitous Johnny and emigrate with her to Israel.

Growing in confidence and power, Nelly gradually wrests the initiative in the relationship away from Johnny, culminating in a final scene that will take your breath away. Set in a lyrical key, with fairytale overtones, the film makes perfect sense as long as we do not insist on strict realism. Part of this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival, this beautifully acted and emotionally provocative drama is well worth an evening at the cinema.