Phoenix

Resplendent devoted unassuming submission, longing to be lovingly reunited with her heart's treasured panacea, her horizons leavened after having survived an incomparable hell, having survived to live once more, to return home, to rebuild.

World War Two has left her former life in ruins, a mad state of affairs, and after fortunate reconstructive surgery, her husband can no longer recognize her.

She plays it safe, overflowing with desperate joy, which she attempts to express, patiently waiting for the ecstatic moment of truth.

But he's a boor, and she can't accept it, a stubborn fool who refuses to listen, to logic, to reason, providing insights into the gender discriminations that likely played a part in lobbying for the war's eruption, played a part, in setting the world on fire.

A faithful information professional spiritedly stands by her side, but she's too familiar with the facts, and realizes they're beyond forgiveness.

She succumbs to the horror.

The war claiming yet another victim.

Christian Petzold's Phoenix is well done, a dark sombre juxtaposition of innocence and cowardice gracefully moving towards an abysmal redemption, the beginnings of a future, previously unbeknownst.

It's ending is exactly what I was looking for from Ex Machina and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, powerful closure, constitutional in its rebirth.

I had no sympathy for the husband who turned quisling when he could have countered.

But who knows what one would do amidst such savagery?

Death seems preferable.

Barbara

Declarative desire dedicatedly persists after state sanctioned seclusion silences its volatile temerity.

Another, resigned yet combative, is enamoured.

The fate of a rebellious young adult becomes a decisive tangible consequent as the Stasi's invasive pressure deliberately dehumanizes.

A doctor, emphatically refuses, to be muzzled.

Carefully contextualizing different varieties of tension, while diagnosing risk with surgical precision, Christian Petzold's Barbara internally serenades freedom of expression, and externalizes a crisp courageous spiritualization.

An extensive reactive multilateral engagement furtively negotiates an honest state of affairs.

Its interconnected inextricable professional, personal, romantic, governmental and (inter)national relationships foment a forlorn fugitive firmament wherein influential forces collaborate and contend.

Interrogating what it means to pursue.

Attempting to have their voices heard.

Jerichow

Christian Petzold's Jerichow cultivates the convoluted hardline between economics and ethics by establishing a complicated love triangle hewn according to jealous guidelines. Thomas (Benno Fürmann) finds work as a cucumber harvester after losing everything only to one day be granted an exceptional opportunity to work as the full-time driver for Ali Ŏzkan (Hilmi Sözer), alcoholic owner of a variety of snack stands. Ali's wife Laura (Nina Hoss) has little love for her abusive husband and quickly falls for quiet Thomas after said husband has to many drinks one sunny afternoon. Thomas plays by his own rules in a resignedly loyal fashion and while wishing to remain fidel can't overcome the immediate demands of his attraction. Laura's dark past keeps her committed to Ali while yearning for something more and the two lovers create a plot whose exposition results in an intrepidly ironic resolution.

Jerichow competently explores a hopeless and foolishly profound situation wherein which three individuals attempt to do what is right while consistently colliding with what is present. Plans, projections, and unforeseen disruptions tie together their various schemes while simultaneously unravelling the knot. There's a choice, a result, a consequence, each of which could have been mitigated if it wasn't for the unfathomable dictates of 'required.' Solace in circumstance, predictability in numbers, regrets amidst happenstance.

Hell no.