Taut German thriller explores loss, devastation
The German thriller “In the Fade” puts viewers face to face with loss — and with what happens when a world shatters, leaving only darkness in its wake.
Katja (Diane Kruger) lives contentedly with her Kurdish husband, Nuri (Numan Acar), and adorable young son, Rocco. Nuri has served prison time for drug dealing but has reformed and embraced family life.
One day, Katja drops off Rocco at his father’s office and goes to visit her sister (Samia Chancrin). Returning later to collect them, she finds a nightmare: crowds, flashing lights, a building leveled by a bomb and a sad-eyed police officer with terrible news.
The sound fades out around Katja — all we hear is her breathing and, eventually, her screams.
All this plays out in the first few minutes of the taut, accomplished film from Fatih Akin (“The Edge of Heaven,” “The Cut”); most of “In the Fade” centers on the aftermath.
Although Katja is convinced that Nazis targeted and killed her family, the police — though outwardly sympathetic — think drug connections from Nuri’s past are behind the murder.
Eventually, with the help Fatih Akin.
R (for disturbing images, drug use, and language including sexual references) Film Center 1:46 at the Gateway of an attorney (Denis Moschitto) who was a close friend of Nuri’s, steps are taken toward justice, and “In the Fade” becomes a courtroom drama.
Katja, looking pale under harsh fluorescent lighting, tries to hold herself together while staring at those she thinks are responsible for the bombing. The grieving woman has become a ticking bomb herself, seemingly just waiting to detonate.
Akin, who has said that the movie is inspired by recent real-life killings by a neoNazi terror cell in Germany, finds some poignant details: a tiny coffin painted with stars and moons; a tribute offering of candles outside Nuri’s office in the cold rain; a little boy’s pirate ship on the rim of the bathtub, in the sightline of a mother who can’t bear to move it.
Mostly, though, he focuses on Kruger’s face. Katja tries to numb her pain with drugs but can't; her expression suggests someone who has been ripped open.
Filmed in harsh grays and cruel light, interspersed with warm home movies of the family in a happier time, the story is terribly sad and often mesmerizing.
“In the Fade” was a hit in Germany and a 2018 Golden Globe Award winner, so eyebrows were raised last month when it didn't draw a nomination for the foreignlanguage Academy Award.