Cut Off

Paul Herzfeld, a professor of forensic pathology, finds a piece of paper hidden inside a mutilated woman's body: it carries the name and mobile number of his own seventeen-year-old daughter. She is on an island cut off from the mainland by a storm. The film is not interested in the killer's identity. It is interested in the idea of an autopsy at a distance: the father cannot reach the island, so he has to talk two people there through cutting open a body by telephone. Its best scenes are built on that impossible instruction. The form is faithful to genre: tight cutting, confined spaces, an escalating countdown. The images are merciless in their autopsy detail. The source is a novel written jointly by Sebastian Fitzek and Michael Tsokos. Tsokos works at the Charité in Berlin and is one of Germany's best-known forensic pathologists, so the technical detail comes straight out of the profession. Christian Alvart directed. It runs 132 minutes, was distributed by Warner Bros. and opened on 11 October 2018. Moritz Bleibtreu plays Herzfeld, with Jasna Fritzi Bauer and Lars Eidinger in the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like German thrillers and forensic crime fiction. Who it is not for: anyone with a weak stomach or an aversion to length. The film runs past two hours and leans too hard on coincidence in its final stretch.