Yella
Dir: Christian Petzold | Germany | 2007 | 90mins
The eponymous protagonist of this compelling and creepy drama, played by Nina Hoss, winner of the Silver Bear for best actress at Berlin earlier this year, sets off from her hometown in former East Germany to start a new job in accountancy in the West, tentatively accepting a lift to the train station from her obsessive and threatening ex-husband. Refusing to be set back by a traumatic incident which occurs on the journey, Yella persists onwards to Hanover . Through a turn of events she ends up working with – and later developing a romance with – a venture capitalist who bears an uncanny similarity to her ex, accompanying him to corporate meetings and reveling in a ruthless world of double-crossing and back-handed deals.
However, there are hints that the narrative is not as straight-forward as it may at first appear. Details such as Yella's clothing as well as her frequent surprise awakenings and sudden exits from transport function to build up a sense of eeriness. Most striking, perhaps, is the sensitive soundtrack, conveying the echoes of a past event which haunt the protagonist intermittently. The visuals, meanwhile, evoke a sense of alienation of the characters who live in hotels, boardrooms and car parks, all muted colours and industrial textures of glass, concrete and steel. The film ends with a shattering twist, dealing a hard-hitting blow to Capitalism which has thus far tragically determined the characters' choices about love and life.
Distributor: Artificial Eye
35mm & DVD bookings | Daniel Graham | 020 7438 9525
On general release
Official site | www.artificial-eye.com/yella/main.html
Saturday 3 November, 10.00 | Broadway 2
