Phoenix

15 yrs 98 minutes • 2018 • 7.3

The German director Christian Petzold's film Phoenix is loosely based on the novel Le retour des Cendres by Hubert Monteilhet. Cabaret singer Nelly Lenz returns to Berlin after surviving the Holocaust. She is severely injured in the face and undergoes an operation that changes her appearance. Nelly searches for her husband Johnny, despite being warned that he may have been the one who betrayed her. When she finds him, he doesn’t recognize her. And she does not reveal her identity. Nelly agrees with his plan that she will play his, as he believes, dead wife, to gain an inheritance. In DN, the film is rated 4 out of 5 by Kerstin Gezelius. She characterizes it as "a beautiful and gruesome puzzle in the torn city of Berlin".