Christian Schwochow’s adaptation of Julia Franck’s novel Lagerfeuer opens with a young woman exiting East Germany in the late 70s, then subjected to a humiliating interrogation and strip-search before finally being allowed to leave. Yet having arrived in West Berlin, where a grim refugee centre becomes her new home, Nelly (Jördis Triebel, excellent) finds the indignities of the past mirrored and repeated, with the CIA as interested as the Stasi in the increasingly foggy fate of her deceased Russian partner. “Why did you leave East Germany?” she is asked repeatedly, eventually prompting the reply: “Because of questions like these.”
Such parallels multiply throughout this tautly constructed drama, as friends and informants become indistinguishable, paranoia infects interpersonal relationships, and violence is meted out on the strength of a suspicious word or whispered innuendo. Intelligently scripted by Heide Schwochow (the director’s mother) and resting on Triebel’s finely nuanced performance, this offers a low-key counterpoint to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Oscar-winning The Lives of Others, and is intriguing on personal and political levels.
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