Undine review - a shaggy catfish of a story about a woman with a water obsession
(The Guardian Germany)

The director of Transit returns with a somewhat pointless film about an art historian who has a passionate affair with a diverChristian Petzold´s Undine is an intriguing, bemusing oddity of a film: a suspense drama-thriller with a fey supernatural twist. It´s a sphinx that, if not exactly without a secret, has less of a secret than it thinks it has. And it is possible to come away from the film less than convinced, but very impressed by the sheer force of Petzold´s film-making talent (recently so stunning in his drama Transit) but which has been here deployed for something which is a bit flimsy and silly.Paula Beer plays Undine who, as her name suggests, may have intense sympathies with water. She lives in Berlin, and is a stylish and elegant historian who lectures on the city´s architectural history at the Berlin City Models exhibition. But she is also conducting an unhappy adulterous affair with Johannes (Jacob Matschenz), which is reaching its unhappy end at the film´s opening - revealing a flash of something angry and even violent in Undine. Continue reading...