‘You must become completely emotionless…’
This is a difficult one to review without talking about the ending, so if you plan on watching Yella anytime soon, best to look away now.
There is probably no more derided possible conclusion to a story than ‘it was all a dream’, and while it is certainly crude and infuriating when done badly, there are examples of this trope being successful. Particularly if the dream is a death dream. Ambrose Pierce’s short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is perhaps the gold standard, but Carnival of Souls and the Inside No 9 episode of 12 Days of Christine are also fine examples. It is Carnival of Souls that inspired German writer-director Christian Petzold to direct his fourth film, Yella, and it’s a beauty…
Yella Fichte (Nina Hoss) is driven off a bridge by her estranged and psychotic husband, Ben (Hinnerk Schönemann), following an argument. Ben drowns, but Yella survives and moves to Hannover from Wittenberge to take an accountancy job. Upon arrival, she teams up with fellow employee Philipp (Devid Striesow) to scam their clients out of their money.
Yella is essentially a German-language remake of Carnival of Souls, but what makes it work is that the world inhabited by Yella here is much more grounded and real than that occupied by Candace Hiligoss’s character in Carnival… that only makes the hints that something isn’t right all the more sinister. The continued use of water throughout the film is masterfully done, and Hoss, a regular collaborator with Petzold, provides a layered and nuanced performance in which she is morally elusive but still eminently likeable.
This is how to remake a classic film. Make it your own. Make it something that retains the spirit of the original but something that can stand on its own two feet. That’s what Yella is. An underseen gem.
