Phoenix: Christian Petzold’s war drama follows a former cabaret singer working on reconstructing her life after surviving a concentration camp; the film is a bit cold (understandably, the characters try to bury the horrors of the Holocaust), and some aspects of the plot are hard to buy, but the look at the emotional toll of the War and Holocaust on the main trio of characters is certainly rich and engrossing to watch. In a fascinating performance, Nina Hoss plays the protagonist, a broken woman who pretends she isn’t who she is in a bid to recover what she lost. Ronald Zehrfeld plays her husband well, a man blinded by denial and greed. Nina Kunzendorf is fine as the protagonist’s best friend. The film is tightly and classically built, with good editing work by Bettina Böhler, and very well shot and lit by cinematographer Hans Fromm. Production designer Klaus-Dieter Gruber efficiently built a Berlin razed by the war.