I'm pretty much obsessed with Nina Hoss

German capitalism, poor east and rich west, ghosts of the past, loneliness and existentialism... it feels as if Edward Yang was Alfred Hitchcock and if he would have been inspired by a tad of Weerasethakul, a film like this could have been made. But no, it's not Yang, Hitchcock or Weerasethakul but Petzold himself. Again Nina Hoss gives voice to thousands trapped inside their lives which are in half trapped in society. Are these people alive or dead?

Whew. CARNIVAL OF SOULS, mais à propos de la culture d’entreprise, de la dualité Est-Ouest et du fantôme dans la machine (capitaliste) allemande? Quoi de plus effrayant qu’un hôtel où les portes ne barrent pas? Extrêmement mon truc. Ça fait longtemps que je procrastine, il est temps que je me penche sérieusement sur Petzold (qui, ici, en est déjà à son 8e film !!!).

Go west, to a ghost world, delve in the branches of business, in drowned modernity, find sex amid all the constant anxiety (not as a palliative but as a natural unfolding of this tense structure), and finally live your life in this intermediate state, between Germany's unification and existential ostracism. Petzold's rhythm and framing was never as acutely modulated as here, haunted by a constant crisp light shedding on empty spaces, between Chabrol and Kurosawa, its mood allying a suspenseful thriller and a horror film.

From Berlin School auteur Christian Petzold comes this haunting psychological thriller that borrows its structural framing and flirtation with the uncanny from Herk Harvey’s 1962 lo-fi horror triumph Carnival of Souls. Nina Hoss is riveting in the title role, persuasively expressing Yella’s shell-shock from the traumatic incident involving her abusive ex that kicks the story off as well as her low-key self-assuredness in the business meetings that take up most of the movie’s runtime. The realism that characterizes much of the dialogue and settings - believably bland office buildings and a nondescript hotel - heightens the chill when the movie slips into an eerier register, and we wonder what’s actually real and what’s not.

"Are you interested in balance sheets?

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

nina hoss

unpaid bills.

Nina Hoss is so riveting and adept at conveying nuance that I barely minded not being able to follow the plot. In this case, though, Petzold's restraint proves to be a slight hindrance, depriving the twist ending of the emotional weight it deserves. It's more of a puzzle than a revelation.

I admit I didn't entirely understand what was going on in the negotiation scenes, but they were riveting nonetheless, as Yella begins to assert herself in the otherwise pointedly male spaces. Christian Petzold's talent for marrying psychologically complex characters with eerie, slow-burn suspense is on full display here.

I don't understand how something so reliant on the specifics of dry business deals can still be so engaging??? This is normally the sort of shit I just check right out of.

괴이한 고전영화 을 사실상 리메이크한 작품으로서, 폭력적인 남편의 집착으로 인한 주인공의 트라우마가 자신을 포함한 주변 풍경을 강박적인 불안의 공간으로 변모시켜 가는 경과를 담고 있다. 새하얀 유령의 이미지 등 원작에 등장했던 상징적인 강렬함은 덜하지만, 강물의 이미지와 까마귀 소리 등으로 작중 상황의 괴이한 면모를 세련되게 잘 조성한다.