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By Ilene Serlin & Jeff Saperstein
Can trauma and transformative healing be responsibly portrayed in movie entertainment? Hollywood generally serves up so much psycho-babble to audiences that one hesitates to recommend a film that presents compelling trauma and transformation. Phoenix is a German-conceived and -produced film that proves the exception to the rule.
Nina Hoss puts in a stunning, haunting performance as the protagonist Nellie Lenz, directed by Christian Pelz (in German with English subtitles). Phoenix delivers a trifecta of trauma and transformation: It shows Nellie as a Jew in post–WWII Germany, which has no place for Jews after they have been imprisoned in concentration camps and killed during World War II; as a wife deceived in a marriage; and as a woman subjugated in a man’s world. As a trauma survivor, her identity, her sense of meaning and coherence, and her narrative have been erased.
The film begins with Nina returning to Berlin as a grievously wounded person who is “invisible to others” and indeed to herself. Her “existential shattering” has been complete; she is so much in shock that she seems not quite alive, part of the “walking dead.” She is both guided and nursed by her friend Lene Winters, who is trying to convince Nellie to immigrate to Palestine and begin a new life by building a Jewish country. But Nellie cannot see herself defined as a Jew even though she has suffered greatly at the hands of her fellow Germans because they saw her as a Jew. She is not yet ready to rebuild a new narrative but must reconstruct what happened to her.
At first, Nellie tries to cling to her primary identity as a wife. She seeks out her non-Jewish husband, Johnny, who had accompanied her as a pianist when she was a cabaret singer before the war. As she experiences postwar Berlin and the brutality of the Germans, she begins to understand that she no longer has a place there. She finds her husband working in a cabaret called Phoenix. Although she approaches him with love, he does not recognize her. He thinks, in fact, that she is dead, and tries to enlist her help in a ruse to recover his wife’s inheritance. As he describes details of his former life with his wife, Nellie begins to recover her memories and the narrative of her former self, and she starts to feel as if she exists again. Then, with Lene’s help, she slowly comes to realize that her husband had divorced her and betrayed her to the Gestapo. She pieces together clues and talks to former neighbors, who could not help her when she was arrested. Set in the backdrop of a decadent German cabaret, her husband shows his callousness and becomes a symbol of Germany itself.
Nellie is dominated and victimized by men in her captivity as well as in her liberation. She begins her journey like a zombie, following the orders of any man who commands her, including victorious American and English soldiers. As she is drawn to leave the secure apartment of Lene and the female housekeeper, she experiences danger from men in the streets and sees their brutality toward women in the cabaret. Yet she is living more in the present moment, beginning to reconstruct her life.
Finally, we see her transformation physically, emotionally, and intellectually as she gradually reclaims her humanity and becomes resolute to reclaim her life. In the film’s conclusion we see her reveal herself to her husband as the Nellie who survived; we also see his shock in realizing all the things he has lost through his own greed and cowardice. Nellie sees through the callousness of her German friends, the depraved soul of her husband, and the indifference of a brutal world run by men. The music she chooses to sing is a well-known Lotte Lenya song called “Speak Low.”
Both Lotte Lenya and Kurt Weil, the song’s composer, are Jewish; yet another reminder of the pre-war Germany lost now to Nellie. The use of the song, played throughout the film, is also a reminder of the powerful role of music in recovering memory and healing trauma. As she walks out in the final scene, however, Nellie has reclaimed her identity, her power, and her narrative. She is no longer a victim, but takes charge of her life,
Nina Hoss’ acting tours de force is that we see all though her eyes, facial expressions, and body posture and movements in subtle, yet unforgettable moments. Although where she goes remains a mystery to her and to us, we can see that she has emerged from her existential shattering a whole person with a future in her own hands.
Ilene Serlin, Ph.D, BC-DMT is a psychologist and dance movement therapist at Union Street Health Associates in San Francisco and Mill Valley.
Jeff Saperstein is married to Dr. Serlin and is a university teacher, business author, and career mentor. Co-founder of GroupCVC.com
