Graf at Anthology: The Invisible Girl

This provincial Bavarian town has a picturesque Medieval festival, but it is a border town, with border town kind of establishments. It is also a divided town. One faction believes young Sina Kolb really was murdered by the mentally challenged convicted of the crime, whereas the larger faction suspects he was railroaded by the cops. A recent transfer from the Berlin police department will start digging up the past when investigating a potentially related murder in Dominik Graf’s The Invisible Girl, which screens during the Graf retrospective at Anthology Film Archives.

Niklas Tanner wanted a fresh start after he was erroneously accused of acting improperly with a witness. Rather inconveniently, he immediately has a one-night stand with a woman who will factor prominently in his first case in the fictional burg of Eisenstein. It turns out Inge-Marie Kolb was Sina’s mother. She also happened to meet Eva Lorant shortly before her death. Lorant claimed to have seen the missing Sina after her presumed murder, according to the cops’ bogus timeline. Obsessed with the case, she came to Kolb again, believing she saw the grown Sina in the red-light district supermarket, where she worked.

Of course, these are exactly the sort of details senior inspector Wilhelm Michel is supposed to sweep under the carpet. He assumes the semi-disgraced Tanner will be a perfect fall guy, if need be. Granted, the Berliner might not be too smart, but he is tenacious. He will also find an ally in Joseph (with a “ph”) Altendorf, the original detective investigating the Kolb disappearance, until Michel replaced him.

For German viewers in the know, Invisible Girl probably slanders Bavarian politicians left-and-right, but for Americans coming in without baggage, it is a pretty tightly constructed little police procedural-political thriller combo. Ronald Zehrfeld (whom we hope you recognize from Christian Petzold’s masterful Barbara) is solid as Tanner, in a believably beefy, non-superhuman kind of way. Elmar Wepper also nicely grounds the film in cynical morality as the prickly, not-letting-it-go Altendorf.

Weirdly, Anja Schiffel is terrific as Michel’s right-hand lieutenant Evelin Fink, even though the sexual nature of some of her scenes with him are a little creepy and off-putting (remember, this is for German television). More appropriately, Ulrich Noethen is spectacularly slimy as the snake-like Michel.

Despite a few excesses, Invisible Girl is a highly credible mystery-thriller, with a keen sense of the Czech-Bavarian border region. It also clearly demonstrates Graf’s professionalism. If it is your stein of beer, you had better see it when it plays during the Graf retrospective. Recommended for fans of ripped-from-the-headlines crime dramas, The Invisible Girl screens Monday (5/27) and next Saturday (6/1) at Anthology Film Archives.

Graf at Anthology: Twilight Eternal

For obvious reasons, art collections with iffy provenances acquired during the early to mid-Twentieth in Germany will arouse suspicions. Such is the case with the Magnus Dutt collection. The elderly eccentric is quite secretive regarding his holdings, but Philipp Keyser’s employers are convinced he has a rare painting only recorded in rumor and vague second-hand reports. They will retain him to acquire the painting, by hook or by crook, However, he will get more than he bargained for when he tries to get to Dutt through his artistically tempered niece in Dominik Graf’s Twilight Eternal (a.k.a. At the End of Time), which screens during the Graf retrospective at Anthology Film Archives.

Keyser is told acquiring the painting in question is a matter of justice for the firm’s client. He is not wildly concerned about such matters. For him, it is a potentially chance to return full time to the Grisham-sounding “firm.” The idea is to cozy up to his great-niece Alma, a defiantly unmarketable artist in her own right, who will then introduce him to the old man. Maybe she will and maybe she won’t. Regardless, she does not seem very put off when she learns their romance is based on mercenary motives. Their relationship might not be the healthiest, but on the other hand, these two could really be perfect for each other.

Eternal (or End of Time, or Am Abend Aller Tage) is another Graf TV movie that has garnered more than typical screenings and ancillary interest outside Germany. Most likely it is due to its wink-wink source material: the notorious case of the real-life Gurlitt Collection, as refracted through Henry James’ The Aspern Papers. It also happens to have some interesting things to say about the nature of art and its appreciation.

However, the presumed charms of Friedrrich Mucke’s Keyser are rather lost on this reviewer. Whereas Victoria Sordo’s Alma, the Miss Tina analog, is a far cry from a Plain Jane, she certainly has issues. They definitely have convincing sexual tension and dysfunctional (but still potent) chemistry together on-screen, Yet, Ernst Jacobi frequently steals the show as Dutt, whose connection to his collection runs deeper than mere investments.

Again, Graf helms with greater style than viewers usually expect from the term “TV movie.” It is more engaging intellectually than on an emotional level, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Frankly, anyone intrigued by its literate but cynical take on the gallery business and of-the-moment contemporary art should see it during the Graf retrospective, because it probably will not be back around anytime soon. Recommended accordingly, Twilight Eternal screens today (5/25) and Wednesday (5/29), at Anthology Film Archives.

Graf at Anthology: The Cat

They are stealing Deutschmarks not Euros, using walkies instead of cellphones. This is the late 1980s, but most of the bank heist business still holds up pretty well. One thing remains a metaphysical certainty, weaponized marital resentment can be deadly and unpredictable. Bank robbers make strange bedfellows in Dominik Graf’s The Cat, which screens as part of the Graf retrospective at Anthology Film Archives.

Jutta Ehser is the inside person, who will help the mysterious Probek rob her husband’s bank. It is safe to say their marriage has been strained lately. Probek is the eye in the sky, who will keep the two gunmen in the bank informed of the police activity outside from his vantage point in a luxury high-rise hotel. Junghein and Britz are the two suckers he recruited to take the bank employees hostage. Voss is the coolly cerebral cop in charge of the standoff. He and Probek are evenly matched, but Junghein and Britz are in serious trouble.

Of course, Frau Ehser is not just collaborating Probek to hurt her husband. She is also carrying on a steamy affair with the criminal mastermind, as the opening scene so vividly establishes. Frankly, The Cat is like the Body Heat of heist movies—rather surprisingly, since it is German.

It is also super-sleek and lethally effective. Graf makes hay with the claustrophobic settings, while screenwriter Christoph Fromm’s adaptation of Uwe Erichsen’s novel keeps the betrayals and reversals of fortune coming at a healthy gallop. Frankly, it is easy to see why The Cat was a box office hit in Germany. Its canny use of Eric Burdon & the Animals’ “Good Times” also propelled the single back up the German charts.

Götz George is as slick as the film is as the delightfully cold and manipulative Probek. He is a villain worthy of great era of high-concept Eighties cinema. Gudrun Landgrede matches him step for step as Ehser, the femme fatale. Joachim Kemmer is perfectly world-weary and hard-bitten as Voss, while Ulrich Gebauer really provides the secret ingredient, pulling off several surprises in a surprisingly smart and nuanced performance as Herr Ehser.

Shame on everyone who was scouting for the major studios in 1988, because The Cat would have been a perfect property for a Hollywood remake. Maybe it still is. It certainly hooks viewers quickly and leaves quite an impression. Highly recommended for fans of 80s heist-thrillers, The Cat screens this Saturday (5/25), at Anthology Film Archives.

Graf at Anthology: Tatort—The Red Shadow

Decades after their demise, the German Red Army Faction is still generating bad karma—and crime scenes. Of course, the later is the name of the game for the long-running German police procedural television show Tatort (translation: “crime scene”). It is such an institution it periodically produces stand-alone TV movies that often tackle more ambitious subject matter. In this case, the RAF conspiracy theories garnered unusual fest play for Tatort: The Red Shadow, which screens during Anthology Film Archives’ retrospective of leading German film and TV director Dominik Graf.

For Detective Chief Superintendent Thorsten Lannert, this case will hit close to home, because he was once a terrorist-sympathizing leftist himself. It starts out like a tabloid story when Christoph Heider is arrested for trying to smuggle his ex-wife’s body to France for an autopsy. He is convinced her current lover, Wilhelm Jordan murdered her. After some cursory investigation, Lannert and his junior partner Sebastian Bootz start to suspect there might be something to Heider’s suspicions.

Jordan is definitely a creep, but he seems to be protected by a high-ranking state prosecutor and the Witness Protection service. They soon more-or-less confirm Jordan served as an informer on RAF activities. Suddenly, questions about the Baader-Meinhof gang start percolating when Jordan’s old lover, Astrid Fruhwein returns to her violent, gun-toting criminal ways. Lannert will even start to doubt the official version of the suicide of the Baader suicides.

There is a lot of conspiratorial smoke-and-mirrors in Red Shadow, which kicked up quite a fuss in German, but does not amount to much for viewers not steeped in the extremism of the “German Autumn.” Even if the FRG went a bit extracurricular on the RAF, it is hard to have sympathy for them. Just ask the families of Dr. Heinz Hillegaart, Andreas von Mirbach, Fritz Sippel (age 22), Jürgen Ponto, Dionysius de Jong (age 19), Johannes Goemanns and the dozens of other policemen, diplomats, customs officers, and U.S. servicemen the RAF murdered.

In fact, the murkiness of the conspiratorial speculation turns into a big “eh.” What works best in Red Shadow is the Law & Order-style chemistry shared by Richy Muller and Felix Klare, as Lannert and Bootz, respectively. Muller is especially watchable as the crusty Lannert. Hannes Jaenicke is also thoroughly loathsome and intensely creepy as Jordan. Regardless of your ideological convictions, he is definitely a very bad guy.

Graf conveys a sense of the overheated vibe of the German Autumn and how it continues to exert a corrosive influence several decades later. He helms with a surprising degree of flair and maintains a brisk pace throughout. It is a solid procedural outing for the warhorse franchise, but it just doesn’t add up to as much as it thinks it does. Recommended for procedural fans and conspiracy nuts, Tatort: The Red Shadow screens this Friday (5/24) and June 1^st, during the Graf retrospective at Anthology Film Archives.