“If you leave me, I will have to kill you,” Undine (Paula Beer) threatens her unfaithful beau Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) over coffee. As with many of the film’s principal locations, the outdoor cafe, situated across the street from the museum where Undine freelances as a historian and tour guide for Berlin’s Urban Development and Housing program, is a spot to which we’ll periodically return. It’s as if director Christian Petzold (Jerichow, Barbara) defines sanity as revisiting the same locations over and over again, and experiencing different dramatic results. Another such spot: the adjacent pub where Undine promptly meets Johannes’ replacement Christoph (Franz Rogowski), a decent but fidgety industrial diver whose apprehension accidentally caused a 1500-gallon aquarium to come crashing down upon the couple, miniature deep sea diver and all. Seeing how she appears to be based on a mythic water nymph, it’s rare for the otherwise solemn docent to crack a joke. But while still clutching the underwater ornament, and with a last gasp of water squirting from its air operated oxygen pump, Undine turns and asks Christoph, “Is this an industrial diver?” The title clicked, sounding as it did like a variation on Neil Jordan’s tale of a silkie, Ondine. Sure enough, both stories stem from the same supernatural root: Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s 17th Century fairy-tale novella. So in love are the couple that the man she threatened to kill at the outset merits little more than an over-the-shoulder glance when the two cross paths on walks with their new lovers. The film slowly builds to a crazy house of mirrors, with characters and situations doubling on each other. The sole act of violence is swift, unexpected, and more frighteningly executed that anything that passes for chills in contemporary horror. And for all the times you’ve heard me complain about films ending with a meaningless skyward pan-up, it’s refreshing to see one conclude, for a change, with a dip below groundwater. (2020) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.