Christian Petzold
-
Trailer Watch: Christian Petzold’s Afire
Christian Petzold returns to the Berlinale this year with Afire, the second installment of his elemental trilogy following 2020’s water-inspired Undine and preceding a forthcoming film about earth. Afire will reunite Petzold with his frequent collaborator Paula Beer, who will star alongside Thomas Schubert, Langston Uibel, Enno Trebs and Matthias Brandt. The first trailer arrives today from Matchbox Films ahead of Afire‘s Berlin premiere. Per the film’s official synopsis: “Leon and Felix’s plan was to spend the summer together in a holiday home on the Baltic coast. They wanted to be there as friends but also to work—one on his […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 13, 2023 -
“I’ve Never Made Storyboards Before”: Christian Petzold on Undine, CGI Catfish and Swimming Pools
When I got on Zoom with Christian Petzold, the writer-director had already been doing press off and on for Undine for 16 months. The film premiered at last year’s Berlinale to mixed-muted response and only now, via IFC Films, is seeing US release (both in theaters and on PVOD). In the interim, Petzold got and recovered from COVID-19 while doing interviews as the film continued its (virtual) festival run. There may not seem to be much left to talk about at this point, but Petzold is a famously inexhaustible and self-analyzing interview. In the middle of our talk, his internet cut […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 7, 2021 -
Martin Eden and the Perils of Viewing from Home
In a normal year – one not defined by a global pandemic or its protracted, deeply politicized response – I would have seen Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden in a theater. Here in New York, options would have abounded: BAM, the Angelika, Lincoln Center. Instead I took the advice of critics like Bilge Ebiri to “see it any way you can,” which in my case meant an HDMI setup to my TV. As we limp toward the end of 2020, it seems every week brings another harbinger of doom for the theatrical experience. HBO Max announced that major 2021 titles will stream […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Dec 16, 2020 -
Berlinale 2020 Dispatch 2: The Salt of Tears, Siberia, Undine
At the risk of being canceled, I’ll admit that in the days since I watched The Salt of Tears, I’ve found myself wondering, “Who will make films like this when Philippe Garrel is gone?” (The best answer I’ve heard so far: Louis Garrel.) By “this” I mean a stereotypically oh-so-French comedy with an existential bent. Or a season in the life of a dour-faced, impoverished young artist who beds every beautiful woman he meets and is too young and too myopic to realize he’s a gaping asshole. Or the story of a boy who loved, disappointed and mourns for his […]
by Darren Hughes on Feb 27, 2020 -
Fabricated: Petzold’s Astounding Phoenix
Still bearing facial scars from vain attempts to kill her in a concentration camp, the festering infection that followed, and drastic plastic surgery to re-create her (the doctor’s term) in a hospital in her bombed-out hometown of Berlin, the once ravishing Jewish chanteuse Nelly Lenz (Nina Hoss) recklessly saunters out alone into the night to search for the Aryan pianist husband she has not seen since her arrest. Extremely self-conscious, she asks a blind street musician where to even begin looking. Pointedly, he recommends the American sector: That’s where the clubs and the action are. The film’s title is the […]
by Howard Feinstein on Jul 24, 2015 -
Survivor’s Song: Christian Petzold on Phoenix
The more you consider the nuances of German filmmaker Christian Petzold’s latest feature, Phoenix, the more difficult it is to articulate exactly what this mysterious and allusive drama is really about. It’s the director’s seventh feature for cinema (discounting the five he has made for television), and the fifth he has made in collaboration with actress and avowed muse Nina Hoss. While not quite stripped down to Bressonian levels of formal curtness, Petzold’s style is without fuss. As he explains below, his mode of storytelling is generally more reflective and assiduously built through alternating perspectives than it is literal or […]
by David Jenkins on Jul 23, 2015 -
Christian Petzold on Barbara
With Barbara, German auteur Christian Petzold (Yella, Jerichow) delivers one of 2012’s better character studies, a tense and sparing Cold War-era drama about a female doctor (Petzold muse Nina Hoss) who’s relegated to a hospital near the Baltic Sea after trying to leave the German Democratic Republic. It’s 1980, and the movie effortlessly conveys the period in all its stark unease. Honored at the 62nd Berlinale and serving as Germany’s official Foreign-Language entry for the 85th Academy Awards, Barbara sees its eponymous heroine grapple with the restraints of politics and her own fears in a manner as mysterious as it […]
by R. Kurt Osenlund on Dec 21, 2012
