[yasr_overall_rating]
Katja’s life collapses after the death of her husband and son in a bomb attack. After a time of mourning and injustice, Katja seeks revenge.
From “Munich” to “Marathon Day,” senseless acts of terrorism (is there any other kind?) and their repercussions have been widely depicted on film. Similarly extensive is the history of thrillers about women hellbent on revenge: from “Foxy Brown” to “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” Fatih Akin’s “In the Fade” attempts to tackle both subjects. Think of the JLo starrer “Enough,” replace its lead with an infinitely more subtle actress, add a political element and a heavy dose of artistic flourishes, and you’ll have an idea of what “In the Fade” is like, its title quite aptly describing the length of time it stayed in my memory. A weird amalgamation of TV-drama-of-the-week and searing character study, the film is compulsively watchable but hollow. Were it not for Diane Kruger’s revelatory, Cannes-winning performance anchoring the by-turns tedious, sappy and predictable elements, this would have been just another cautionary tale on Lifetime – albeit a particularly pretty one.
Split into three parts – the sorrowful first third, the courtroom-set middle, and the thriller-like finale – the film always seems on the edge of taking off but never really does, each part settling into a comfortably conventional rhythm. After her husband Nuri (Numan Acar) and son get killed in an explosion, Katja and her lawyer set off to bring justice to the perpetrators: a blonde couple (Ulrich Brandhoff and Hanna Hilsdorf) who happen to be Nazis. With authorities digging into Nuri’s shady past – he served time for smuggling drugs – and scrutinizing Katja’s substance abuse, she is left to her own devices and realizes that it may be “A Time To Kill,” going all MacGyver on the assailants’ asses.
As a courtroom drama, it’s nothing new – we’ve all lived through John Grisham’s heyday; “The Rainmaker” this ain’t. Haberbeck (Johannes Krisch), the Nazis’ lawyer, is so purely evil, a nasty growth protruding out of his bald head, it’s as if he stepped off a Leni Riefenstahl set, enunciating and spitting each syllable with utmost vehemence. “In the Fade” doesn’t really function as a mystery either, for there is no real investigation. As a treatise on terrorism and its impact, the film’s lukewarm, its message not extending beyond “terrorism is as senseless as the revenge it spawns” and “why can’t we all just get along.” As an examination of racism, it’s simply inefficient: what’s the conflict here? What are the Nazi couple’s motivations, aside from Nuri being a foreigner, as a title card solemnly proclaims prior to the credits rolling? Yes, I get it, there are folks who bomb folks simply because of their race, but I’d still like to see them fleshed out beyond mere cardboard villains. I guess it works best as a character drama, thanks to Diane Kruger’s powerful portrayal of grief.
And oh man, she brings it. Known primarily for her roles as Helen in “Troy” and Bridget von Hammersmark in “Inglorious Basterds,” Kruger gets a chance to truly flex her acting chops here; she’s up to the task. From the unforgiving close-ups of her face in the immediate aftermath of this immense tragedy to pure exhaustion to unadulterated fury to clenched-teeth determination, it’s all right there, in each flutter of her eyelids. In one of the film’s truly original moments, Katja is in a field of hay, her straw-blonde hair blending with the swaying stalks, and the actress wonderfully morphs with her surroundings, a literal force of nature. She handles some of the film’s other potentially-campy scenes – an interrupted suicide attempt, listening to painful autopsy report details about her child’s death – turning them into highlights.
Despite her acting, there’s not much we get to know about Katja, or her husband, or their circle of friends. The film is so minimal and so resolutely focused on one aspect of what I imagine would be a kaleidoscopic emotional spectrum in the wake of such tragedy, it has little room to breathe and doesn’t attain the lingering effect for which it so clearly strives. Writer/director Faith Akin’s filmography dates back over 20 years, and while I’m ashamed to admit I’m not familiar with his films, judging by “In the Fade” it’s clear that the man knows how to position a camera, sustain suspense, create a rewarding sequence… It also seems like he thinks he has more on his mind than he really does. A bit more depth next time, please, thank you.
In theaters early 2018
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