REVIEW:

A finely crafted film, Christian Petzold’s Gespenster (Ghosts) takes on depth and meaning in relation to the films that went before it. A devotee of the psycho-thriller, Christian Petzold makes sure that each shot (cameraman Hans Fromm), every image on the screen, counts. Like pieces of a mosaic, they not only help to push along the narrative with as little dialogue as possible, but they also serve to uncover layers of personal guilt and remorse, deceit and prevarication, doubt and vacillation. In this regard, Petzold seeks the council of filmmaker Harun Farocki (with whom he once jobbed as assistant director) as mentor and colleague on all his feature films to date.

Petzold’s first three feature films were outstanding entries in the Max-Ophüls-Preis competition at Saarbrücken. In each of these films a »lost soul« is on a trip to nowhere, but the journey is mostly inward with dreams not to be fulfilled. In Pilotinnen (Pilots) (1994), his diploma film at the Berlin Film Academy (DFFB), Petzold explores the crass superficiality of the cosmetics trade by following two saleswomen across Germany on their route who find themselves pitted against each other all the way. In Cuba libre (1995), awarded the Film Grant-in-Aid Prize at Saarbrücken, a pair of ex-lovers wrestle with raw emotions as they crisscross Europe in pursuit of freedom ­ symbolized by a fantasy escape to Cuba. And in Die Beischlafdiebin (The Bed Thief) (1998) an attractive woman has spent her best years drugging male tourists in luxury hotels in Mallorca in order to finance her younger sister’s education ­ only to discover that the money has been wasted.

Then came Petzold’s critically acclaimed moral trilogy on guilt, conscience, and expiation for past deeds. In Die innere Sicherheit (The State I Am In) (2000), awarded »discovery of the year« by FIPRESCI critics at Cannes and a Film Band in Gold at the Lola Awards, a terrorist family still on the run returns to Germany in hopes of leaving the underground on behalf of teenaged daughter. In Toter Mann (Dead Man) (2001), a woman’s pained quest to avenge the murder of her sister ends differently than she had planned. And in Wolfsburg (2003), awarded a prestigious Adolf Grimme TV Prize, a hit-and-run driver who accidentally killed a boy on a highway cannot run away from his conscience no matter how hard he tries ­ he eventually seeks forgiveness from the distraught mother.

Christian Petzold’s Gespenster comes across as a coda to his trilogy on moral ethics and individual conscience. Indeed, hints are plentiful that Ghosts is directly linked to all the films in the trilogy. Julia Hummer, the teenaged daughter in The State I Am In, a fragile, sensitive, and intelligent girl who had lost her terrorist parents in a car crash, is now Nina, a shy, cynical, uncooperative refugee from assorted foster homes. She roams the Berliner Tiergarten in the company of another lost vagabond, Toni (Sabine Timoteo), a young tramp who has even less scruples on what it takes to survive than her companion. Weaved into the story is Francoise (Marianne Basler), a French woman on a trip to Berlin with her husband Pierre (Aurélien Recoing ). Francoise cannot overcome her own guilt at the loss of her three-year-old daughter kidnapped some years before.

The International Jury at the Berlinale overlooked Gespenster for award consideration. So, too, the nominating committee for this year’s Lola Awards in all possible categories. No matter. This has happened before in Christian Petzold’s remarkable career as the »conscience« of German cinema. Ethics has its price.

Ron Holloway

Gespenster (Ghosts). (Germany/France, 2005). Schramm Film Koerner & Weber, Les Films des Tournelles, ARTE France, BR München. Prod Florian Koerner von Gustorf, Michael Weber, Anne-Dominique Toussaint. Dir Christian Petzold. Scr Christian Petzold, Harun Farocki. Cam Hans Fromm. Ed Bettina Böhler. Mus Stefan Will, Marco Dreckkötter. Sets K.D. Gruber. Cos Annette Guther. Snd Andreas Mücke-Niesytka. Cast Julia Hummer Sabine Timoteo, Marianne Basler, Aurélien Recoing, Benno Fürmann. 85 mins.