Two Lives

I expected a 'small' film, very Scandinavian and moody about not much of anything. Instead, one of the most intriguing and suspenseful espionage stories ever AND based on a true case! Beautifully scripted, crisply directed and Liv Ullmann deftly underplaying her role steals every scene she is in! The spycraft is top-rate and believable and the human elements, above all, make this endlessly fascinating. I am not easy to please when it comes to Cold War thrillers.

The central character is endlessly fascinating to think about. The way she lives a lie and yet really and truly loves and has a family. Seldom does a movie keep me thinking long afterwards as this did.

In Norway, Katrine Evensen Myrdal (Juliane Köhler) is a middle-aged woman happily married with Navy Commander Bjarte Myrdal (Sven Nordin). Katrine loves her daughter Anne (Julia Bache-Wiig) that is a single mother; her granddaughter Turid; and her mother Ase Evensen (Liv Ullmann) that helps Anne to raise Turid. Katrine's father was a German occupation soldier during the World War II and Katrine was taken by the German government and raised in the Sachsen Orphanage in East Germany. At the age of 20, Katrine escapes from East Germany and comes to Norway to meet her mother.

In November 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German lawyer Sven Solbach (Ken Duken) seeks Katrine and her mother out to give the testimony in a trial against the Norwegian state on behalf of the war children. Katrine refuses to testify, but Ase accepts and turns the life of her daughter upside-down when Sven discloses hidden dark secrets from her life.

"Zwei Leben" is a spectacular German-Norwegian film with a credible story of espionage, drama, love and thriller based on true events unknown for great part of the world. The screenplay is very well written, disclosing the truth about the mysterious Katrine through flashbacks like a puzzle. The performances are top-notch, highlighting the fantastic German actress Juliane Köhler from "Aimée & Jaguar", "Nowhere in Africa" and "Downfall" among other great movies. It is different to see Liv Ullmann an old lady after so many movies by Ingmar Bergman. In the end, "Zwei Lebe" is a highly recommended movie with an engaging sad story. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Duas Vidas" ("Two Lives")

You can read summaries of this movie's plot line elsewhere. This movie is all about Juliane Kohler's heart-searing portrayal of a woman coming to terms with her past. For me, five stars on Netflix, ten stars on IMDb.

Some have written that the plot is implausible. It is not. It is fascinating. I had never before heard of Juliane Kohler until coming across this movie on Netflix, but I now expect to see everything I can find with her. She is absolutely riveting. Her astonishingly expressive face is the centerpoint of every scene. In fact, at nearly fifty years of age, she is more beautiful than photos I have seen of her in movies ten and twenty years earlier.

Too, Liv Ullman is wonderful as her mother. I haven't see Ms. Ullman since her films with Ingmar Bergman in the late 50's and 60's, followed by the wonderful "The Emigrants". She has been too long away from the camera.The rest of the cast is also excellent. But Ms. Kohler: oh my, oh my, oh my.

"Two Lives" is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. I watched it on Netflix. It's a German movie that takes place in Norway shortly after reunification of Germany. Part of the story is about a woman, played by Liv Ullman, who fell in love with a German soldier during the war and they had a daughter. After the war, such women were shunned and the children sent to orphanages in Germany. To say more would give away too much. It's a masterfully written screenplay about fictional people, but such events did happen. One small part I could have skipped, otherwise an excellent portrayal of a sobering story. It's the kind of movie where you watch all the credits roll by at the end because you can't turn it off.

I stumbled across this whilst looking for German language films and although it's mostly in Norwegian, I still had to watch because the plot sounded fascinating.

I thought I had it all figured out from the beginning and that I knew exactly how it would end. I was wrong.

When dealing with conspiracies and far-fetched seeming events, the best way to go about it is with subtlety and understatement. Juliane Köhler as the lead 'Katrine', manages to portray the urgency, danger and horror of the situation whilst still being sympathetic. I honestly didn't know who to feel most sorry for by the end of it all.

The only criticism I have (and hence why not 10/10), is that I would have liked to have seen more of the family and how they subsequently dealt with the tragic revelations.

I'm very glad I watched this and it's an easy recommendation from me.

9/10