Ondine

... and that shape can be pretty much whatever you want it to be which, depending on your interpretation, might be as hot as a kettle or as cold as ice, a sinker or a floater, completely cloudy and obscure or gin crystal clear. Beautiful performances all round, elegantly performed, imaginative and, in my view, water worth testing, if for no other reason than to test yourself..

Loosely based on the 19th century novella of Friedrich de la Motte Fouque about an aquatic spirit who must marry a knight to gain a soul, but has to kill him if he is unfaithful, German director Christian Petzold's ("Transit") Undine weaves a tale that skirts the edges between romance and fantasy. Reuniting the stars of "Transit," Paula Beer ("Never Look Away"), winner of the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival and Franz Rogowski ("A Hidden Life"), the film seems like a risky departure from the director's recent work about people caught in the traumatic events of contemporary European history, yet it propels his ideas about timelessness and the notion that the past is always present, even though the form may change.

Set in present-day Berlin, a city that was ironically founded on water, Undine, opens a door to the past with its repetition of the lovely Bach's adagio from his Concerto in D Minor. Beer is Undine, a free-lance historian and museum guide who lectures international groups on Berlin's Urban Development project located on Berlin's Museum Island, connecting the city's ties to its past. In particular, she talks about the city's Humboldt Forum project, a partial reconstruction of the demolished 18th century Berlin Palace, explaining that the castle was demolished during the Socialist era and is now being reconstructed.

Without prior knowledge of the fairy tale, which Petzold may assume we all know, Undine's nature is unclear. She looks and acts human, although there is strangeness about her silences and long, penetrating looks. According to the director, "she is a little bit like a ghost, like a phantom." Petzold does not reveal Undine's true nature but clues to her real self emerge when her aloofness and seemingly robotic manner begin to define her presence. In the opening scene, Undine sits outside a Berlin café with her boyfriend, Johannes (Jacob Matschenz, "A Regular Woman"). Johannes threatens to leave her for another woman but is reminded that if he leaves her, she will kill him. Only a half hour later, she runs into Christoph (Rogowski), an industrial diver who has a warm, outgoing personality and Johannes is temporarily forgotten.

After an aquarium tank explodes, they lie together on the floor in a pool of water, dead fish, and broken glass, staring into each other's eyes. As he picks pieces of glass from her blouse in a scene that is romantic, surreal, and comic, his caring gives her a sense of what it feels like to be loved. Of course, the irony here is that he works underwater, while she, a water spirit, lives and works on land. Though their romance is real, Petzold declared, "They were like two dancers who get very close, but like in tango, they still keep a certain distance, which shows the respect they have for each other."

The chemistry between them is strong, however, and their relationship can be enjoyed with or without knowledge of the story's mythological roots. Working underwater, after confronting a giant catfish ostensibly without fear, Christoph sees Undine's name displayed on an ancient arch deep beneath the surface and takes her diving on their first date to see her name. She momentarily disappears before floating to the surface, her diving apparatus stripped allowing Christof to further bond by resuscitating her. According to legend, if Undine returns to her roots, she must remain there. She is, however, a rule breaker who is not beholden to either legend or men.

Undine is challenging to unravel but in its essence, it is a tribute to the strength and independence of women or, as a recent popular song might put it, to "the power of love." As Petzold describes it, "Struggling against domination, Undine exists only through men. Then along comes a man, a proletarian, an industrial diver, who interferes with the curse. He is not suspicious; he's innocent and for the first time seems to see her primarily without any sexual desire and without wanting to dominate her. This is new for her, and a path to a new world seems possible."

The movie that made me fall in love with Berlin, which I went twice and couldn't love. A modern Romeo + Juliet story from the Germans. A visual and auditory feast.

A film with a unique spirit that breaks down the prejudices of "Germans can't make a love movie" and "German is not an emotional language".

Christian Petzold is a big name in German cinema, but his new film "Undine" is doing not so well in the IMDB rating. Having seen the film I wondered why, because I found it fascinating. There are a couple of explanations.

The first one is that the regular admirers of Christian Petzold were disappointed. Was he not one of the main directors of the "Berliner Schule" and was he not supposed to make socially critical movies in stead of a mix of romance ad fantasy? Petzold himself put the "Berliner Schule" in perspective in a recent interview and said that it were just a couple of directors who happened to attend the same school at the same time. Of course they were influended by there teachers, but that was all. They were and remained different type of directors.

The second explanation is that "Undine" is very hard to follow without prior knowledge of the legend on which "Undine" is loosely based. This is true. See the following information as necessary foreknowledge and not as a spoiler. Creatures who are half fish / half woman can be divided into two categories. The good ones are called Mermaids (the German fresh water synonym is Undine) and they come out of the sea to love a man. The bad ones are called Sirens (German fresh water synonym Lorelei) and they are luring men into the water. Undine is good but in the story of Friedrich de la Motte Fourqué (1811) she is dependent on her male lover for a soul. When this male lover is however unfaithfull he has to pay with his life and Undine returns to the water.

Mermaids often are male fantasies. They are sexually mature but mentally very naive. In "Undine" Petzold portrays a slightly more female friendly version of Undine. This is however not attributable to Paula Beer, the actress who is the female lead in the last Petzold films and is a worthy successor of Nina Hoss. It is attributale to her two lovers. The first lover (Johannes played by Jacob Matschenz) is the wrong one, who sees a relationship as a transaction. The second lover (Christoph played by Franz Rogowski) is the right one, who sees a relationshipas as a journey of discovery. He even postpones sex to a later stage. Because of the logic of the de la Motte Fourqué legend the affair with Christoph is intense but nevertheless tragic.

Even knowing the de la Motte Fourqué legend makes the film not very easily comprehensible. What is for example the relationship between the death of Johannes and the resurection of Christoph? After the lights go on there is some time needed to "digest" "Undine". For some this is annoying, for me it is the confirmation of quality.

The strength of petzold is his combination of reality and illusion, the present and history, creating a strong literary emotional image to capture the real, create illusion and make people intoxicated