Yella

Aroview: Engrossing metaphysical thriller set in a predatory corporate world in which a divorcee accountant (Hoss) decides to leave behind her redundant life in East Germany and start afresh in the West, but finds herself haunted by her troubled past.

Directed with a controlled yet consistently warped sense of unease by up-and-comer Petzold, this chilly critique of the alienating effects of capitalism also unnerves as a symbolic interpretation of a nation caught between its traumatic past and numbly ambitious present. The enigmatic Hoss is especially effective as the embodiment of this tension, as is the film's use of Ballardian spaces and repetition alongside abstract imagery, lending the film an elusive air of mystery that'll keep audiences guessing well past the head-scratching ending. Won Best Picture at Germany's version of the Oscars.

NZ International Film Festival 2008

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