Yella (film)

Yella
Release poster
Directed by	Christian Petzold
Produced by	Florian Koerner von Gustorf Andreas Schreitmüller Caroline von Senden Michael Weber
Written by	Christian Petzold
Starring	Nina Hoss Devid Striesow Hinnerk Schönemann Burghart Klaußner Barbara Auer Christian Redl Selin Bademsoy Wanja Mues
Music by	Stefan Will
Cinematography	Hans Fromm
Edited by	Bettina Böhler
Distributed by	Schramm Film Koerner & Weber
Release date	13 September 2007 (2007-09-13)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	Germany
Language	German

Yella is a 2007 German dramatic-thriller film directed by Christian Petzold and starring Nina Hoss.^[1] The film is an unofficial remake of the 1962 American film Carnival of Souls.^[2] Yella premiered at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival where Hoss won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award.

Plot summary

A withdrawn accountant, Yella, (Nina Hoss) arrives by train in her hometown. Yella's estranged husband, Ben, (Hinnerk Schönemann) is stalking her and offers her a ride home. She coldly declines and walks away. Yella visits with her father and tells him that she has found a job in Hannover, beginning the following morning. Despite his apparent poverty, he gives her a significant amount of money to help her transition in a new city.

The next morning, Yella waits for a taxi to take her to the train station. Ben arrives, insisting that he give her a ride instead. She reluctantly agrees. He talks to her about their relationship and his failing business agreements for the duration of the ride. He becomes angry and aggressive when she refuses to return to him. Despite her pleas, he will not let her out of the car and instead drives the vehicle off a bridge and into the river below. Both Ben and Yella escape from the car, with Yella leaving an unconscious Ben on the river's shoreline. She catches her train to Hannover.

Arriving at her hotel, Yella discovers she has no deposit for her room. She gives the hotel manager the cash from her father. That evening, as she eats dinner alone, a man, Philipp (Devid Striesow), asks her if she's interested in data sheets for businesses. She cooly declares that she is.

The following morning, Yella arrives at her new job. Dr. Otto-Schmidt, the man who hired her, is standing outside, talking to someone on his phone. He sees Yella and asks her to enter the building and bring him a small pigskin portfolio from his desk. She readily agrees, but upon arriving in his office, is confronted by a man who says Dr. Otto-Schmidt is no longer allowed on the premises. Yella manages to secure the portfolio anyway and hide it under her coat. She goes back outside to question Dr. Otto-Schmidt.

The doctor is evasive about what is going on and asks for the portfolio. He vaguely promises Yella another job, this time in Hamburg. Yella gives him the portfolio back, only for the doctor to make a crude pass at her. She abruptly leaves the car and walks back to her hotel, resigned to returning to her father's home in Wittenberge.

A few hours later, Philipp finds her open hotel door and sees her asleep. He wakes her and invites her to help him with a business deal. She accompanies him to his meeting where she reviews documents and quickly discovers falsified information. Philipp believes they can use this to their advantage and rewards her with 1,000 euro.

When Yella returns to her hotel room, she sees that someone has been in it: eating, watching television and resting in the bed. Yella sees Ben standing outside her window and runs outside to confront him. Ben attempts to kidnap her but relents upon hearing a noise and quickly walks away. Returning to the hotel, Yella sees Philipp and the businessman from the meeting earlier that day making a deal in Philipp's parked car. Philipp follows her to her room and asks for her help on another deal. In their next meeting, Yella displays an instinct for manipulation that impresses Philipp.

On their drive home from this meeting, Philipp gives Yella an envelope with 75,000 euro and some deposit slips, asking her to deposit the money for him. After making the deposit, the bank teller tells her that she gave him 25,000 euro more than necessary. She takes the extra money, planning to mail it somewhere before rejoining Philipp. As she prepares to send the envelope off, Philipp interrupts her. She joins him, but does not reveal the extra money. Philipp casually mentions, as they drive, that he knows about the extra 25,000. She returns it to him and Philipp angrily storms away. That evening, Yella considers returning home but instead talks to Philipp in his hotel room. She explains that she stole the money to send to Ben, who claimed he needed financial help until an airport was built in their town. She had hoped that the money would keep him from stalking her. Philipp discloses that there is no airport being built, that Ben must be manipulating her, and that he would like to keep working with her.

Following another successful meeting, Philipp invites Yella to accompany him on his travels to another business. She accepts. As she calls her father from her hotel room to tell him the news, Ben emerges menacingly from a shadowy corner. He explains that their company ruined their love and that he will return to his job as an electrician to get her back. She tells him to leave and he hits her. She runs to Philipp's room for help, with Ben in hot pursuit. Hearing Yella's frantic knocking, Philipp opens his door and a frightened Yella throws herself into his arms and hugs him tightly. Ben is suddenly nowhere to be seen. Yella kisses Philipp and they retreat to his room for sex.

The following morning Yella drives Philipp's car and takes a detour to her hometown. He becomes angry, asking her to stop. She stops and he takes the driver's seat. Yella exits the car and walks to a field. Philipp catches up and apologizes. He explains that he was afraid of meeting her father and his expectations of domesticity. He tells her his own plans for designing a better safety system for oil rigs but that he still needs 200,000 euro to begin his enterprise. Yella says she will continue to help. Philipp stops at a motel and gives Yella some money to go shopping for clothes. Philipp reveals that their last meeting was his last customer. His organization is dumping him, presumably due to his unethical practices.

Yella drives away and stops at the home of a man from a previous meeting. She attempts to blackmail him with information she gained about a potential patent infringement and demands 200,000 euro. When he resists, she tells him he could lose everything if he is found out. Yella returns to Philipp at the motel and tells him she loves him.

The next morning, the two wait for the man she is blackmailing. He cannot be found but Yella experiences an odd vision of him which then vanishes. Alarmed, she drives to his home, asking his wife to help her look for him. Yella and the man's wife discover his body in a pond behind the house. As Yella stares in shock, Philipp suddenly appears, brushing past her to help the man's wife pull her husband's body out of the water. He looks accusingly back at Yella.

Yella is sitting dejectedly in the back of a police car as it travels back to the station. She begins sobbing. Suddenly, she is back in Ben's car, just as he steers it off the bridge. She makes no move to resist her fate.

Police remove Ben's car from the water using a crane. Divers deposit Ben and Yella's bodies on the shore, covering them both with a shroud.

Cast

• Nina Hoss - Yella Fichte
• Devid Striesow - Philipp
• Hinnerk Schönemann - Ben
• Burghart Klaußner - Dr. Gunthen
• Barbara Auer - Barbara Gunthen
• Christian Redl - Yella's father
• Selin Barbara Petzold - Dr. Gunthen's daughter
• Wanja Mues - Sprenger

Production

The film's title was inspired by actress Yella Rottländer who was the female lead in the 1974 film, Alice in the Cities. Yella was filmed in Germany in Hannover, Lower Saxony and, Wittenberge, Brandenburg.^[3]

The film is the third part of director Christian Petzold's "Gespenster" trilogy (the first being The State I Am In and the second being Gespenster.^[4]

Reception

Critical reception for the film has been mostly positive.

Roger Ebert praised the film awarding it 3 1/2 / 4 stars stating, "The writer-director, Christian Petzold, uses a spare, straightforward visual style for the most part, except for those cutaways to trees blowing in the wind whenever we heard the harsh bird cry. He trusts his story and characters. And he trusts us to follow the business deals and become engrossed in the intrigue. I did". Ebert also praised male leads Striesow and Schoenemann calling the similarities of both characters' physical presences as being "unsettling".^[5]

It currently has an 81% on the review website Rotten Tomatoes, the sites consensus saying "Chilly and haunting, Yella's atmosphere gets under the skin".^[6]

References

External links

• Yella on IMDb
• Yella at Rotten Tomatoes