What a movie.

Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, and Nina Kunzendorf star in "Phoenix," a 2014 film based on the French novel "Return from the Ashes". There was a previous film made from this novel, actually called Return from the Ashes in 1965. I remembered seeing that movie as a kid and finally found it again. It's very good, but this film is better.

Nina Hoss plays Nelly, a concentration camp survivor who was shot in the face. A government worker, Lena (Kunzendorf) in charge of helping victims, brings her to a plastic surgeon. Nelly is adamant that she wants to look exactly as she did before. The doctor can only promise to try. When she asks Lena who is paying for all this, Lena tells her that her entire family is dead and she has come into quite a bit of money.

When Nelly sees herself, the face is foreign to her and she says, "I don't exist." She stays in an apartment with Lena. Lena has found an apartment for her in Palestine, where Lena is also moving.

Nelly wants to find her husband Johnny (Zehrfeld),a non-Jew, but Lena cautions her that he betrayed her to the Nazis. She was a singer and he a pianist, so she goes to various clubs, but finally finds him working in a club called Phoenix as a dishwasher.

Johnny doesn't recognize her, but he asks her if she wants some work. He explains to her that he can't get his hands on his wife's money. He wants her to impersonate Nelly, show up alive, claim her inheritance, and in return, he will pay her.

At first, Nelly refuses, then relents. He shows her a photo of Hedy Lamar and says his wife modeled herself on that.

Nelly returns to Lena and tells her that she's going to do the impersonation and not go to Palestine. She will stay with Johnny. She knows he would never have betrayed her.

Director Christian Pezold has woven noirish tapestry about survival, love, betrayal, and guilt. It is reminiscent of Vertigo but with the specter of the Holocaust, much deeper and intense.

Nina Hoss is beyond perfection as Nelly, desperate for her old life, her old face, her husband, to wipe out all she has suffered. Like Zehrfeld, she says more with her expressions than with dialogue. Zehrfeld as Johnny presents a disturbing puzzle of denial and horrific guilt, so unbearable that he tries to recreate Nelly.

The last scene in this film, in its simplicity, is stunning and powerful.

A brilliant film, which you may want to view more than once to pick up details along the way.

When I was about to watch Phoenix, I was very apprehensive. I'd read about the plot and it was a story about the Holocaust. I have already seen many, many, many films about this period and while films like The Shop on Main Street and Schindler's List are great films, they also take a lot out of you emotionally. Plus, with so many great films about this era, I wasn't thrilled with seeing yet another. Fortunately, Christian Peltzoid (who wrote and directed this movie) managed to make something that was truly unique and worth seeing--and I really appreciate that.

When the film begins, World War II is over and a heavily bandaged woman is being driven to a German hospital. It seems that this woman, Nelly (Nina Hoss),has been through Hell. She'd just spent time in a Nazi concentration camp where her face was beaten so severely that she needs extensive plastic surgery just to look human again. The doctor advises her to pick any sort of face she'd like but that she should NOT try to look like the woman she was before, since the doctors never can get it quite right. Despite this warning, Nelly insists and the surgery is a success. She has a lovely face...but the doctor is right...she doesn't look exactly like her old self.

Following surgery, Nelly has a lot of questions about her former life. She'd been in hiding for much of the war and was discovered only in 1944. But how did the Nazis learn that she was there? Who betrayed her? Lene, Nelly's companion and close friend (how close we are never exactly sure) advises Nelly to not worry about this-- that she should just leave Berlin and move to Palestine with her. But Nelly has to know. Was it her husband or one of her friends that sent her to the camp?

Soon Nelly begins exploring the streets of Berlin looking for any traces she can find of her husband, Johnny. The city is in ruins--- homes destroyed, people are out of work and her search seems futile. However, Johnny was a piano player and she begins searching nightclubs and street corners where folks eked out a living playing music for passers-by. Eventually, she spots Johnny. Naturally she recognizes him but he cannot recognize her because she's changed so much. Several more times Nelly visits this nightclub--remaining in the shadows and just watching Johnny. Eventually, he approaches her--which is very strange. Does he recognize her? No....but he recognizes that she looks much like his old Nelly and he offers this strange woman with a proposition: will she pretend to be his wife so that he can claim Nelly's inheritance? After all, she was a rich woman long ago and he would share some of it with this faux Nelly.

So where does this all go? Well, that's for you to see in this thought-provoking film. I won't spoil it for you but I will tell you that the ending is NOT 100% clear and leaves a bit of room for interpretation. I thought this was actually the best part of the film. Of the course, the very fine acting, great story and excellent direction also make it a film to see.

By the way, for parents, this is an acceptable film to show younger viewers. The film talks tangentially about the holocaust and is free from adult language and nudity. While very young kids would be bored by the plot, teens might enjoy it as well if they have an open mind towards movies with subtitles.

It's Germany after WWII. Nelly Lenz is a Nazi camp survivor with facial disfigurements. She and her companion Lene Winter are returning home to retrieve their family inheritances. She gets reconstruction surgery resulting in a slightly different face. She wants to reunite with her husband Johnny Lenz despite Lene's insistence that he's the one who turned her in to the Nazis. Lene wants to build the new state of Israel. Nelly finds Johnny working at the nightclub Phoenix. He doesn't recognize her and wants her to pretend to be Nelly for a split of her estate.

Expositions in movies are often derided but a good exposition is a necessity. There are a lot of murky questions. The movie doles out the story in dribs and drabs. I still don't know Nelly and Lene's actual relationship, and why Nelly assumes the identity of Esther. I'm more willing to buy into the central premise of her conflicted feelings about Johnny and his cluelessness to her true identity. It's a fascinating interior conflict and there's a real tension about the truth of her discovery.