TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES

Christian Petzold

Undine

Christian Petzold
2020 - Germany / France - 1h30

Screenings : sunday 21 - 2:00 pm - Centre de congrès - Amphi Jardin - presented and followed by a debate with the film directors thursday 25 - 6:00 pm - Centre de congrès - Amphi Jardin

Undine works as a historian lecturing on Berlin's urban development. But when the man she loves leaves her, the ancient myth catches up with her. Undine has to kill the man who betrays her and return to the water.

At the opening of the film, the tension between a couple sitting at a table reveals a separation. A separation which appears as a parallel to that of the city in which the action takes place: Berlin. “What to do about the breaks of the past?” becomes the film's main issue. It was another contemporary German filmmaker, Christoph Hochhäusler, who showed Christian Petzold the massive models of the city exhibited at the Stadtmuseum: “Berlin is a city built on marshland, it dried out a world to become a great city. It doesn't have its own myths, it is a modern city, the result of a design. As an old merchant city, it has always imported its myths. (…) At the same time, it is a city which is increasingly erasing its history. (…) And I thought that all that, these destroyed pasts, these residual myths, was an integral part of the story of Undine”. The very day of her break up, Undine meets Christoph and falls in love. “Christian Petzold achieves a sort of model in the story of this liaison, which goes straight to the point, deliberately avoiding the compulsory psychological steps, to depict what could be the image of love itself.” (Olivia Cooper-Hadjian; Les Cahiers du Cinéma)

CAST AND CREW

Cast : Paula Beer, Franz Rogowski, Maryam Zaree, Jacob Matschenz, Anne Ratte-Polle
Screenplay : Christian Petzold
Cinematography : Hans Fromm
Editing : Bettina Böhler

Production : Schramm Film, Les Films du Losange, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF)

French distributor : Les Films du Losange