Ghosts

A German film set in Berlin. Nina lives in a hostel for young people. She has no family; she gathers leaves in the park, returns to the hostel in the evening and talks to nobody. One day she comes on a fight in the park and rescues a girl named Toni. Toni is her opposite: she talks fast, steals, takes what she wants and pulls Nina along after her. The two go about the city together. They go to a producer's audition, steal clothes from a shop and spend a night behaving as other people. There is a third person at the same time. A French woman is walking about Berlin looking for her lost daughter; the child disappeared years ago and she has looked at every young girl since. She sees Nina and decides she is her daughter. What the film is interested in is all three trying to hold onto something: one is looking for a friend, one for a mother, one for a life, and none of them is interested in who the other really is. The narrative explains nothing and gives nobody's past in full. Julia Hummer plays Nina, Sabine Timoteo plays Toni and Marianne Basler the French woman. Christian Petzold directed. The film counts as the second part of his trilogy of ghosts. A strong production for anyone who likes contemporary German cinema and narratives kept at a distance. For a viewer expecting resolution, the film answers no question.