Undine review - respecting the nymph | reviews, news & interviews Undine review - respecting the nymph
Undine review - respecting the nymph
A captivating if unexpected mythic romance from director Christian Petzold
by Graham FullerWednesday, 07 April 2021
In too deep: Franz Rogowski and Paula Beer in Undine Curzon Artificial Eye
Illogical in its twists and turns, elusive as a fading dream but not stylistically dreamy – Christian Petzold’s optimistic romantic tragedy
Undine is a ciné-conundrum par excellence.
Illogical in its twists and turns, elusive as a fading dream but not stylistically dreamy – Christian Petzold’s optimistic romantic tragedy
Undine is a ciné-conundrum par excellence. It seems, at first glance, a dismayingly insubstantial work for the maker of such discomfiting German cultural and political critiques as
Undine: Enjoyably fishy goings-on in Berlin
Intriguing, ambiguous mermaid sort-of romance plays games with the viewer
Genre: Drama
A thoroughly modern reworking of mermaid mythology – interwoven with everything you ever wanted to know about urban planning in Berlin – Christian Petzold’s ninth feature reunites Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski, a couple that blazed up the screen in 2018’s Transit. Undine isn’t as formally daring as that predecessor, which adapted a 1944 anti-fascist German novel as a contemporary drama, but it’s an intriguing romance that plays pleasing games with the viewer until the final ambiguous scene.
The myth of Undine, the water nymph who must kill her mortal lover should he ever prove untrue, may or may not be literal for the film’s mysterious heroine, who doubles as a guide for the Senate Administration for Urban Development in central Berlin. The film opens with a break-up – Undine’s boyfriend Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) has met someone els
★★★★★
DESERVEDLY nominated for six Academy Awards, you can’t help but be swept away by this exquisitely tender and heartfelt story of a Korean-US family in pursuit of the American Dream in 1980s Arkansas.
Though totally fictional, writer-director Lee Isaac Chung was inspired by his own family and provides a fresh new take on the immigrant tale. It is a touching love letter to his own parents and their tenacity to forge a new life in the US and to provide their children with a more promising future.
The film, the produced by Brad Pitt and named after a peppery Korean herb, follows the pressures that a Korean family of four face as they move from California to a small farm in rural Arkansas and how their lives are upended with the arrival of the maternal grandmother (played superbly by Yuh-Jung Youn).
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