went in expecting mermaids and came out knowing a surprising amount about german architecture

paula beer and franz rogowski are so magical together!! i was gonna say i’d watch them read out an instruction manual but paula gave multiple lectures on berlin architecture and i was hanging onto every word so it’s not too far off

casually enchanting in a way that never feels forced, blending a modern love story with a mysterious myth seamlessly by use of visual clues and a gorgeous score. every moment is purposeful and subdued with just the right amount of magic that lingers with me. and this on-screen duo makes my heart ache. i adore this movie

Myth and the city. Petzold's love for fiction, his place and his actors is in peak form. He remains one of contemporary cinema last classicists if by that one means a certain disposition towards his material and how to express it through images. His cinema is constant haunted by old forms, tales, images but it is worth interrogating how they are reconstructed, Very alluring even if the relationship between olf stories and the german landscape he is trying to work on remains a bit more dry. It did made me think a lot about Yella and that's probably my favorite among his movies, so there's that too.

trains are inherently romantic. petzold understands this.

I spent most of Transit being like "I don't know??" then fell in love with it in the final act; here - kind of the exact opposite experience. a movie for the type of person who thinks the Chicago Architecture Boat Tour is the most romantic place in the world (which it is), and obviously Franz Rogowski can [redacted]. on one hand, someone could do a poignant double feature with this and Columbus, and on the other hand, someone could do an insane double feature with this and Serenity.

NYFF 2020: film #24

“maybe my heart did skip a beat, but then it started beating again under your hand”

every christian petzold i’ve seen has an otherworldly tension, and this is no exception. but this is a love story before anything else, and it shimmers with beauty and tragedy. i’ve been thinking about transit since the day i saw it and i can feel this already growing on me as well

A story in which Petzold questions the ability of desire to prevail over memory. If what we want so desperately can overwrite our perception of reality should they be incompatible. And for most of our time in Undine it seems that such revisions are successful not just from our singular perspective but reality at large, that a strong enough desire has the power to re-shape our lives definitively. Then, as the cracks start to appear we start to wonder whether anything actually changed or whether we just fooled ourselves into perceiving a lie, a deception made all the more disconcerting when it's not limited just to ourselves but a group hysteria. Does such dissonance originate from a genuine belief in our fancies? Or, just like the myths we cherish, do we knowingly maintain a false history for the simple sake of fantasy?

Christian Petzold’s modern-day twist on the tale of the mythical water nymph, UNDINE uses the history of German architecture as a metaphor for cursed romance, with magical results. An extremely assured - pristine work, that is haunting and quietly moving without being overly sentimental. Two excellent lead performances from Franz Rogowski and Paula Beer. It's a film that will stick with me for a while, it effortlessly creeps under your skin and stays there. It's all mood. Hypnotic score. Lingering images. Even the long architectural history lectures by Paula Beer in this film feel poetic. The landscapes of Berlin creates a strong sense of place.

Hikâyenin Andersen versiyonunda denizkızı aşkı için sesini feda eder. İnsan olacaktır, ama her an bacaklarına bıçaklar saplanıyor gibi hissedecektir. Bu acı filmin de her anına sinmiş. Sesini kaybetmiş, hikâyesini anlatamamış hayaletlerin acısı. Petzold'un zamanda sıkışıp kalmış aşıkları, tıpkı denizkızı gibi mutlu anlarında bile bir sancıdan, bir iç sıkıntısından muzdarip. Geçmişin hayaletleri kulaklarına fısıldıyor gibi sürekli. Christoph'un anılarında ve suyun altında süzülen Undine gibi, sesini arayan kayıp ruhlar. Şehrin ve insanların hafızasında savaşın, Holokost'un, yüzleşilmemiş, hesabı sorulmamış tüm tarihin yükü, yıkıntısı, tozu. Nasıl ki Undine'nin çalıştığı müzede şehrin farklı 'zamanları' yan yana duruyor ve biz tarihi art arda değil, yan yana ve üst üste görüyorsak, buradaki aşk da öyle. Bu aşkın bütün hikâyesi, bedenine batan camları bir tür huzurla kabullenen Undine'in o ilk fedakarlık anında gizli.