Undine – first look review

Chris­t­ian Pet­zold has built up a lot of intrigue via his pre­vi­ous two fea­tures, a dou­ble-wham­my of World War Two-era psy­cho­log­i­cal dra­mas, Phoenix and Tran­sit. In this light, Undine, ini­tial­ly feels like a baf­fling next step, con­tent to wash its run­time with vague roman­tic themes, lots of water and the rep­e­ti­tion of one melan­cholic piano refrain by Bach.

In the myth of ​‘Undine’, a beau­ti­ful but soul­less water nymph becomes human when she falls in love with a man – but, if he is unfaith­ful, they are both des­tined to die. Pet­zold roots this premise in con­tem­po­rary Berlin, giv­ing his siren (Paula Beer) the job of a his­to­ri­an who gives long talks about the city’s past and future to vis­it­ing guests. Such is her pro­fes­sion­al­ism that she returns to give one such talk in the imme­di­ate after­math of being bro­ken up with in a near­by café by her cheat­ing boyfriend Johannes (Jacob Matschenz). She warns Johannes that if he fol­lows through with the break-up then he will have to die. He tells her to stop with this shit.

Indus­tri­al div­er Christoph (Franz Rogows­ki) is a guest attend­ing her talk. He is so smit­ten by Undine’s under­stand­ing of GDR infra­struc­ture that he finds her after­wards in a café – the same one where she was just dumped – where she is star­ing tear­ful­ly into the mid­dle dis­tance beside an aquar­i­um of fish and fig­urines. Theirs is a clum­sy encounter and Christoph acci­den­tal­ly backs into the aquar­i­um. Glass shat­ters, fish go fly­ing, Undine and Christoph fall on the ground and stay there, gaz­ing into each other’s eyes in a sud­den roman­tic trance. This is only bro­ken when a wait­er notices the dam­age and yells, ​“Hey, ass­holes!” This exchange is indica­tive of the film’s sense of humour. Iras­ci­ble, ground­ed types have a way of cut­ting through a thick mag­i­cal real­ist atmosphere.

Rogows­ki, haunt­ed and cir­cum­spect in Tran­sit, shows anoth­er side of his range here. He is a per­former who radi­ates gen­tle­ness, so it makes sense to cast him as a lover. Christoph and Undine are togeth­er from the moment the aquar­i­um shat­ters. Their hon­ey­moon peri­od flush­es purest bliss into the frame. They pos­sess the ardour of teenagers cher­ish­ing first love. Both their jobs play into the lin­gua fran­ca of their rela­tion­ship. He takes her div­ing. Mys­te­ri­ous things hap­pen when they are under­wa­ter. Down in the depths is a chest which bears the name ​‘Undine’, not to men­tion a large cat­fish named Gun­ther. In one of the film’s most mes­meris­ing sequences, Gun­ther is seen swim­ming off with an uncon­scious Undine in tow, their dif­fer­ent forms sil­hou­et­ted against the sparkling water as Christoph watch­es from below.

Undine’s urban devel­op­ment knowl­edge is so cap­ti­vat­ing to Christoph that dur­ing an inti­mate moment he asks her to deliv­er a speech on The Hum­boldt Forum, a cul­tur­al dis­trict in the devel­op­ment phase. This might scan like a strange kink, but it is one of a vari­ety of ways that Pet­zold evokes Berlin as a place with a past, present and future. Petzold’s reg­u­lar col­lab­o­ra­tors Hans Fromm and Bet­ti­na Böh­ler pull off beau­ti­ful feats of – respec­tive­ly – shoot­ing and edit­ing, cap­tur­ing a character’s gaze upon a spot with­in a large wood­en mod­el of Berlin, before zoom­ing in on that spot, then cut­ting to a a shot of that real loca­tion – a site of emo­tion­al memory.

Pet­zold is in con­trol of his craft, but there is a gnaw­ing sense of anti­cli­max, which grows to a growl as the pic­ture con­tin­ues to unfold with­out any syn­the­sis of the myth­i­cal romance with the geospe­cif­ic mus­ings. Viewed in the after­glow of Tran­sit and Phoenix, it’s dif­fi­cult not to feel under­whelmed by Undine, although maybe – like the under­wa­ter chest and Gun­ther the cat­fish – its mean­ing lies wait­ing in the deep, ready for more intre­pid divers to car­ry it to the surface.