Avenging Kruger is gripping
In the Fade 18 cert, 106 min
Dir Fatih Akin
Starring Diane Kruger, Denis Moschitto, Numan Acar, Samia Muriel Chancrin, Johannes Krisch, Ulrich Tukur
If it’s fair to say that Diane Kruger has been a little understretched, thus far, as a dramatic actress – she has played a lot of muses, sidekicks and sketchy mystery women – that should change, thanks to In the Fade. This German thriller, which deservedly won Kruger Best Actress from last year’s Cannes jury, puts her excitingly to the test, and for a serious cause: angry, despairing and tightly focused, the film is about the dangerous rebirth of far-right extremism in modern Europe. Scene by scene, she’s riveting in it, and even the wobbly moments in the script work a lot better because of her.
Katja (Kruger) is a wife and mother living in Hamburg, who loses both her husband (Numan Acar) and five-yearold son to a bomb blast in the opening reel. It has all the hallmarks of a targeted attack, on the basis of her husband’s Muslim heritage, and Katja finds herself in the position of not only being widow and co-plaintiff in the ensuing trial, but also a key prosecution witness.
Not long before the bomb went off, she noticed a young woman leaving a new, unlocked bike outside her husband’s business, and pointed out how risky this was. The box on top, as forensics confirm, housed the explosives, and Katja’s ID testimony is key to apprehending the suspects.
Kruger’s first major test is to fall apart believably and hit rock bottom, playing a one-time drug-user, who slips back into her habit to numb the pain. Her friend and lawyer, Danilo (Denis Moschitto), interrupts a suicide attempt in her bath with the news, by voice message, that police have a case, and Kruger pulls herself up, covered in blood, to play this back, rescued from the brink by an ominous sense of purpose.
This is the kind of bracing melodramatic flourish that Germanturkish director Fatih Akin has never been afraid of, ever since his breakthrough Head On (2004), a bruising romance between tortured addicts, with an intentional car crash at the start.
In the Fade settles into a long, immersive middle act in the courtroom, made dynamic by Akin’s usual cinematographer, Rainer Klausmann, and the design: gleaming white floors and ceilings give it a near-science-fictional quality, the opposite of your usual wood-panelled showdown. Klausmann’s camera, meanwhile, finds gripping purchase on every contretemps. Many of these involve rising animus between Danilo, played with terrific, tamped-down fury by the always-good Moschitto, and the defence attorney, a relentlessly nasty piece of work sketched by Johannes Krisch (Revanche) as a blatant, hissable friend of fascists. You can feel Akin’s script twisting and milking the scenario for maximum outrage and involvement here, which mars the film’s artistic integrity in places. But if he’s aiming to make your blood boil, boil it does.
All through it, and into an unpredictable third act where further reprisals are on Katja’s mind, Kruger works overtime to humanise the experience. Katja, in her way, is like a Lisbeth Salander with more inner wounds than dragon tattoos – an avenging angel, but one stricken with doubt and grief that bleed into each other in morally confounding ways.
Kruger makes the whole film work, not single-handedly – her director, even when thumping you with his themes, has definite chops – but by living up to all the promise he saw in her as an actress, and surprising you with more.
Katja (Kruger) is like a Lisbeth Salander with more inner wounds than dragon tattoos