A great modern neo-noir thriller with sparse, tight dialog and passion that boils right through to the final shocking ending
Following his critically acclaimed “Yella,” up and coming director/actor Christian Petzold’s current potboiler “Jerichow” was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. On the surface the film has the plot and feel of the noir classic “The Postman Always Rings Twice.” In that movie, a roadside café owner hires a drifter to help out around the place. Soon the drifter is plotting with the man’s attractive wife to eliminate him from their lives. In “Double Indemnity” Fred MacMurray plots with Barbara Stanwyck to kill her husband and is found out by smart insurance man Edward G. Robinson. This film is somewhat of a combination of the two with a plot twist at the end.
The film stars Benno Fürmann who shared the Adolf Grimme Award for “Wolfsburg” in 2003 with actress Nina Hoss and writer/director Christian Petzold. The three are reunited in this film and the result is a riveting mystery thriller. Furmann is the drifter Thomas, returning home to find his mother dead and her home sacked by his scurrilous brother. He moves into the house and begins a dreary search for work in a place that time seems to have forgotten. Jerichow is in the former East Germany and there is little legitimate manufacturing or business of any kind.
Working picking cucumbers Thomas gladly accepts an offer from small businessman Ali (Hilmi Sozer) to be Ali’s driver after Ali loses his license over a drunken driving charge. Beautiful Laura (Nina Hoss) quickly enters the scene and the chemistry between her and Thomas is searing. But there is a big difference between the “Postman” noir and this film. Ali is not a passive brute but a very smart man. He has a weakness for alcohol and can be rough at timers but he has amassed a string of some 46 snack bars and he rules them like Stalin. He knows the score.
Counterbalancing this is Thomas, who is no ordinary drifter, either. Furmann has the body of a professional athlete and knows some nice martial arts moves which he displays in the film.
Completing the trio is the beautiful and sexy Nina Hoss playing Laura. Hoss swept the Bavarian, German and Berlin Best Actress film awards for her role in “Yella” in 2007 with Petzold directing and they know how to build chemistry on-screen. Like Thomas, she has just the right amount of bad baggage in her trunk. Thomas has a dishonorable discharge and she has done prison time and owes and couple hundred thousand in damages. Ali took her in and is slowly paying off her debts but if she leaves him all the debts go back to her.
So Laura is smitten by Thomas but can’t live without Ali’s money. Thomas is smitten by Laura but has no money either, other than what he is making working for Ali. Complicating things further, Ali has a secret of his own that will trump the conniving couple’s plans as they near the finish line.
Fascinating acting by all the leads makes this film great entertainment from beginning to end for noir fans. Money is always changing hands and being promised, withdrawn, stolen, stashed and otherwise manipulated. Emotions flow like money and sometimes in place of it; the characters mistake one for the other. “There can be no love without money,” blurts Laura in the midst of an anguished embrace by Thomas. Maybe in the end the cuckolded husband will be the one to prove them wrong.
Pertzold keeps the dialog to a minimum, the lines a clipped and short, each one echoing the understanding that exists between wise guys who don’t need to say anything. Instinct comes to the fore in discussing the placement of a new snack bar while in the background it’s Ali’s instincts that are far ahead of the cheating that the other two think is secret. Throughout the film the trio goes to the sea and their lives are laid bare against the soft breaking of the waves and wind in the shore grass.
Another great film by Petzold with powerful and understated acting by Furmann, Hoss and Sozer. You will hear from this group again.
Written and Directed by: Christian Petzold
Starring: Benno Fürmann, Nina Hoss, Hilmi Sözer
Release: May 1, 2009
Your Talkback on this Story