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Christa Theret shot to fame as the glamorous model Andree Heuschling in _Renoir_, set during one summer in WWI. _Luise_ is an interesting bookend; it takes place in the last cold months of that war, with Theret's Helene dropping by Luise's farm house uninvited. They are immediately interrupted by German soldier Herman trying to kidnap Helene and explain his captain's death to his superiors. The three fall into a fatal love triangle rendered all the more claustrophobic by religion, the marauding Wehrmacht, and the ever more easy access to violence.

Newcomer Luise Aschenbrenner (Luise) is really the main character. Her protagonist is a child at the edge of adulthood. She is stoic, runs the hard scrabble farm all by herself, and has long mastered an icy stare and God-fearing rigid posture. In contrast Helene always bows her head, as though defeated by misfortune (and more literally by her father, no doubt for being a lesbian). This sophisticated city girl is often photographed at an angle, out of place in this wilderness. Yet even in her down-and-out, deglamorized state the Prix Romy Schneider winner Theret has enough charm to draw Luise out of her isolation. The screenplay subtly tells us how they complement each others' strengths and vulnerabilities. Hermann is a physical specimen and not much more, but his toothy grin and lame jokes are enough to make Luise care for him too. For the first time in her life she has admirers, and Aschenbrenner handles the growth of her character beautifully. It is the other two, who literally don't speak the same language, that cannot handle the competition.

The story is loosely adapted from D. H. Lawrence's novella _The Fox_. The mise-en-scene is deceptively simple, using very shallow focus in interior scenes to heighten the characters' disconnect (at least early on). These scenes are beautifully interspersed against the atmospheric Black Forest hilly landscape. The spare wind-and- string score is perfect for the film too. Dutch director Matthais Luthardt has created a memorable gem; I wish more will go to see it.