Undine

Loosely based on the 19th century novella of Friedrich de la Motte Fouque about an aquatic spirit who must marry a knight to gain a soul, but has to kill him if he is unfaithful, German director Christian Petzold's ("Transit") Undine weaves a tale that skirts the edges between romance and fantasy. Reuniting the stars of "Transit," Paula Beer ("Never Look Away"), winner of the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival and Franz Rogowski ("A Hidden Life"), the film seems like a risky departure from the director's recent work about people caught in the traumatic events of contemporary European history, yet it propels his ideas about timelessness and the notion that the past is always present, even though the form may change.

Set in present-day Berlin, a city that was ironically founded on water, Undine, opens a door to the past with its repetition of the lovely Bach's adagio from his Concerto in D Minor. Beer is Undine, a free-lance historian and museum guide who lectures international groups on Berlin's Urban Development project located on Berlin's Museum Island, connecting the city's ties to its past. In particular, she talks about the city's Humboldt Forum project, a partial reconstruction of the demolished 18th century Berlin Palace, explaining that the castle was demolished during the Socialist era and is now being reconstructed.

Without prior knowledge of the fairy tale, which Petzold may assume we all know, Undine's nature is unclear. She looks and acts human, although there is strangeness about her silences and long, penetrating looks. According to the director, "she is a little bit like a ghost, like a phantom." Petzold does not reveal Undine's true nature but clues to her real self emerge when her aloofness and seemingly robotic manner begin to define her presence. In the opening scene, Undine sits outside a Berlin café with her boyfriend, Johannes (Jacob Matschenz, "A Regular Woman"). Johannes threatens to leave her for another woman but is reminded that if he leaves her, she will kill him. Only a half hour later, she runs into Christoph (Rogowski), an industrial diver who has a warm, outgoing personality and Johannes is temporarily forgotten.

After an aquarium tank explodes, they lie together on the floor in a pool of water, dead fish, and broken glass, staring into each other's eyes. As he picks pieces of glass from her blouse in a scene that is romantic, surreal, and comic, his caring gives her a sense of what it feels like to be loved. Of course, the irony here is that he works underwater, while she, a water spirit, lives and works on land. Though their romance is real, Petzold declared, "They were like two dancers who get very close, but like in tango, they still keep a certain distance, which shows the respect they have for each other."

The chemistry between them is strong, however, and their relationship can be enjoyed with or without knowledge of the story's mythological roots. Working underwater, after confronting a giant catfish ostensibly without fear, Christoph sees Undine's name displayed on an ancient arch deep beneath the surface and takes her diving on their first date to see her name. She momentarily disappears before floating to the surface, her diving apparatus stripped allowing Christof to further bond by resuscitating her. According to legend, if Undine returns to her roots, she must remain there. She is, however, a rule breaker who is not beholden to either legend or men.

Undine is challenging to unravel but in its essence, it is a tribute to the strength and independence of women or, as a recent popular song might put it, to "the power of love." As Petzold describes it, "Struggling against domination, Undine exists only through men. Then along comes a man, a proletarian, an industrial diver, who interferes with the curse. He is not suspicious; he's innocent and for the first time seems to see her primarily without any sexual desire and without wanting to dominate her. This is new for her, and a path to a new world seems possible."

... and that shape can be pretty much whatever you want it to be which, depending on your interpretation, might be as hot as a kettle or as cold as ice, a sinker or a floater, completely cloudy and obscure or gin crystal clear. Beautiful performances all round, elegantly performed, imaginative and, in my view, water worth testing, if for no other reason than to test yourself..

As with much of Christian Petzhold's work, UNDINE connects storytelling with myth -making more than with most filmmakers. Undine is a mythical European legend about a water nymph (over time it has morphed into mermaids, selkies etc.). As is often the case in his movies, Petzhold uses specific details and settings to ground his tale. Here, it's modern day Berlin.

Our Undine (the terrific Paula Beer) is a historian and part-time tour guide for the city's planning bureau. By happenstance, a local industrial diver, Christoph (Franz Rogowski), catches one of her lectures and a relationship begins. As expected, the pair's union is an unusual one. It's not long before Christoph takes Undine for a dive in what he assumes will be HIS comfort zone. There are some beautiful underwater sequences in the movie and they subtly reveal Undine's true nature.

To his credit, Petzhold (who also wrote the screenplay) never underlines to the viewer that this is an ancient fairy tale. The viewer is expected to participate. The lectures which Undine gives about the emergence of a unified Berlin after the fall of the Soviet empire are all about uniting the two different world views, and can be read as symbolic of the central relationship here. Beer is entrancing and again shows why she is one of Europe's rising young stars (she won multiple awards for her performance). Rogowski, who teamed with Beer memorably in the Petzhold's previous TRANSIT, has a burly but, vulnerable masculinity. Hans Fromm's cinematography is fine and the classical musical selections are appropriate (with an assist from the Bee Gees!).

Still, like his other outright fantasy, YELLA, there is something a bit missing from Petzhold's script. That film took it's cues from the cult classic CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962), and here, some may detect a certain kinship with Val Lewton's masterpiece CAT PEOPLE (1942). Original legend and possible homage aside, UNDINE has to work on its own as a drama, and on that level it's slightly disappointing. The various threads, as good as they are at times, never quite fully connect. UNDINE is certainly worth seeing, but, it's not quite up to Petzhold's high standards.

The strength of petzold is his combination of reality and illusion, the present and history, creating a strong literary emotional image to capture the real, create illusion and make people intoxicated

The movie that made me fall in love with Berlin, which I went twice and couldn't love. A modern Romeo + Juliet story from the Germans. A visual and auditory feast.

A film with a unique spirit that breaks down the prejudices of "Germans can't make a love movie" and "German is not an emotional language".