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By Doug Oswald

A concentration camp survivor returns home after the war only to find betrayal and deceit in “Phoenix,” a Blu-ray release from Criterion. Nina Hoss is Nelly Lenz, a German Jew returning to Berlin in 1945 both physically and psychologically damaged after years in concentration camps including the notorious Auschwitz death camp. A successful nightclub singer prior to the horrors of Nazi Germany, she returns home with a disfigured face hidden under bandages when we first meet her on screen. Nelly is aided by her friend Lene Winter (Nina Kunzendorf), a fellow German Jew who fled to England before the war. Nelly receives reconstructive surgery on her face which alters her looks, although we never see what she looked liked prior to her facial disfigurement. We first see her after the bandages are removed post surgery.

Nelly wants to be reunited with her husband,...

What's contemporary Europe got that we ain't got? Powerful, serious filmmaking like that by Christian Petzold, starring the impressive Nina Hoss. Their sixth collaboration is a loaded narrative that takes some pretty wild narrative themes -- plastic surgery, hidden identities -- and spins them in a suspenseful new direction. Phoenix Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 809 2014 / Color / 2:39 widescreen (Super 35) / 98 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 26, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf, Imogen Kogge. Cinematography Hans Fromm Film Editor Bettina Böhler Original Music Stefan Will Written by Christian Petzold, Haroun Farocki from ideas in the book Le retour des cendres by Hubert Monteilhet Produced by Florian Koerner von Gustorf, Michael Weber Directed by Christian Petzold

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

I had seen only one Christian Petzold feature before this one. 2012's Barbara is an excellent Deutsche-Millennial thriller starring Barbara Hoss as an East German doctor trying to do...

Transit

Director: Christian Petzold

Writers: Christian Petzold, Harun Farocki

From within the newer movement known as the Berlin School of filmmaking, German auteur Christian Petzold has managed to stake the greatest international acclaim thanks to recent titles such as Barbara (2012) and Phoenix (2014). Mostly working with co-collaborator Nina Hoss, Petzold tends to craft his films from already existing cinematic endeavors (Phoenix is a version of Return from the Ashes and 2007’s Yella retools Carnival of Souls). Petzold aims to return to the 1940s with Transit, an adaptation of Anna Segher’s 1942 novel Transit Visa which concerns a refugee trapped without papers in Marseilles.

Cast: Na

Production Co./Producers: Na

U.S. Distributor: Rights available. Tbd (domestic/international).

Release Date: During publicity for the Us release of Phoenix in 2015, Petzold professed his plans to shoot Transit sometime in 2016 (he also filmed a project called Circles for Bavarian television network Br). No news...

Diving into the hundreds of new theatrical releases, including large chunks of grueling, gluttonous marathons through world cinema’s greatest offerings from a variety of film festivals, and coming to a reasonable list of selections demonstrating what one deems to be ‘the best,’ remains an utterly self-involved, sometimes fruitless tradition. Who, after all, can rightly determine what is indeed ‘best’ in an art form where one person’s trash is another’s treasure? Personally, I prefer to compile a list of ‘favorite’ things, items which remain meaningless unless you put stock in its author’s general tastes.

Amidst the incessant jabbering of awards season exaggeration, it’s difficult not to be swayed by the most topical, most shiny and brand new theatrical releases courting awards voters (which is why I felt it necessary to see Inarritu’s new film twice). Nearly half of my selections appeared on my mid-year list of favored theatrical releases,...

Return From the Ashes: Petzold’s Compelling Resurrection of WWII Aftermath

At the head of the cinematic movement referred to as the Berlin School of filmmaking is auteur Christian Petzold, an internationally renowned artist whose works have met with increasing critical success and notable visibility. Usually utilizing the talents of his frequent collaborator, German beauty Nina Hoss, the duo has returned with Phoenix, their follow-up to the celebrated 2012 title, Barbara, where it snagged a Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival.

While that film examined a predicament in early 80’s East Berlin, Petzold reaches farther back into the troubled tumultuousness of Germany history with his latest feature, set shortly after the end of WWII. The surviving members of Germany’s populace are forced to contend with restructuring via the help of outside military sources, as well as dealing with the returning survivors of the concentration camps. Like most of Petzold’s films,...

[Editor’s note: This interview took place at the 2014 edition of Tiff. Sundance Selects releases the film in limited theaters and On Demand on July 24th.]

I sat down with Christian Petzold after the premiere of his new film Phoenix at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. We discussed his relationship with the Berlin Film School movement and whether his rising international success still allows him to adhere to the tenets of that movement. His continued collaboration with muse Nina Hoss is discussed, as well as his tendency to base his features on previously produced material, including his latest feature which is based on a novel adapted into a film in 1965 as Return From the Ashes (which Petzold confesses he has not seen).

[Editor’s note: This interview took place at the 2014 edition of Tiff. Sundance Selects releases the film in limited theaters and On Demand on July 24th.]

I sat down with Nina Hoss after the premiere of her new film Phoenix at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. Her sixth collaboration with director Christian Petzold, we discuss their developing dynamic, as well as how she knew while working on their first feature (the 2001 film Something to Remind Me) that they would have a fruitful relationship. The actress wasn’t aware that Phoenix had previously been made into the film Return From the Ashes, but we discuss its likeness to other post war film noirs and pre WWII plastic surgery films. Hoss briefly discusses her interest in music and how her marriage to music producer Alex Silva granted her an opportunity to flex her musical talents as a guest vocalist on a track from the Manic Street Preachers earlier in 2014.

Phoenix Sundance Selects Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes. Grade: A- Director: Christian Petzold Screenwriter: Christian Petzold, Harun Farocki, Hubert Monteilhet, adapted from Hubert Monteilhet’s “Return From the Ashes” Cast: Nina Hoss, Nina Kunzendorf, Ronald Zehrfeld, Trystan Putter, Michael Maertens, Imogen Kogge, Felix Romer Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 6/25/15 Opens: July 24, 2015 Just when you thought that all Holocaust-themed movies had been exhausted, along comes “Phoenix” which, actually, is not a brand new take on its repercussions. Hubert Monteilhet’s novel “Return from the Ashes” covers the material, adapted by Harun Farocki, and the novel had been filmed by J. Lee Thompson starring Maximilan Schell [ Read More ]

The post Phoenix Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

How would you program this year's newest, most interesting films into double features with movies of the past you saw in 2014?

Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2014—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2014 to create a unique double feature.

All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2014 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...

Actor and director who brought dark good looks and a commanding presence to his roles

Austrian by birth, Swiss by circumstance and international by reputation, Maximilian Schell, who has died aged 83, was a distinguished actor, director, writer and producer. However, he will be best remembered as an actor, especially for his Oscar-winning performance in Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) – an early highlight among scores of television and movie appearances. He also directed opera, worked tirelessly in the theatre and made six feature films, including Marlene (1984) - a tantalising portrait of Dietrich, his co-star in Judgment, who is heard being interviewed but not seen, except in movie extracts.

Schell courted controversy and much of his work, including The Pedestrian (1973), dealt with the second world war, its attendant crimes and the notion of collective guilt. In 1990, when he was offered a special award for his contributions to German film, he refused to accept it.

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Fred Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

I had worries that The King’s Speech (Anchor Bay, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$39.99 Srp) wouldn’t live up to all of the kudos that had been thrown its way, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a genuinely enjoyable cinematic experience about a very personal struggles of a very private figure, held together by a genuinely stellar cast. Bonus materials include a behind-the-scenes featurette, a cast and director Q&A,...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Kino Lorder MGM has released the offbeat thriller Return From the Ashes on Blu-ray.  It's a criminally underrated film directed by the criminally underrated J. Lee Thompson. The British b&w production was released in 1964 and filmed at MGM's old studios at Borehamwood. The intriguing storyline focuses on Stan (Maximilian Schell), a penniless but charismatic cad and gigolo who worms his way into being the boy toy of rich female doctor Michele Wolf (Ingrid Thulin) in Paris immediately prior to the outbreak of WWII. Michele realizes she is being manipulated but finds her wayward lover's charms irresistible. After the war breaks out and France falls to Germany, Stan performs what he describes as his one gallant action: he marries Michele despite the fact that she is Jewish. Predictably, the situation ends tragically as she is arrested within minutes of the wedding and sent to a concentration camp.