Comment to hearing, listening and the voice

In Christian Petzold’s film Phoenix (2014), the female protagonist Nelly, a professional singer, returns to her native Berlin after her release from a concentration camp. Berlin is in ruins, and so is Nelly – the viewer understands that her face has sustained massive injury, as the opening scenes of the film depict her with a bandage enveloping her entire face and neck. With the help of her friend Lene, Nelly is referred to a plastic surgeon, who promises to reconstruct her face, although encouraging her to choose a new appearance, take a new face, perhaps a likeness to some movie star of the period – Zarah Leander, Marlene Dietrich, perhaps. On Nelly’s insistence that she wants her old face back, the surgeon is kindly but firmly dissuasive, claiming that “one is never really the same”.

When Nelly has recovered from surgery, much to the protests of her friend Lene, she starts going on nightly expeditions into the city. She seems to be searching – for her native Berlin, for the music that was her profession, for her former husband Johnny, who was the one who reported her to the Gestapo. Perhaps, Nelly is searching for a self that was lost in the camp, thus refusing a “new”, reconstructed and thereby alienated self. When she finally meets Johnny, he obviously does not recognize her, but is struck by her likeness with his former wife – Nelly. Johnny then persuades Nelly (whom he does not recognize) to play the role of Nelly, so that they together can lay hands on and share the considerable inheritance left to her by her dead relatives. Johnny trains and instructs Nelly on how to walk, dress, write and apply make-up, all to resemble Nelly as closely as possible. In short, Nelly goes through a detailed drill to resemble Nelly, herself.

Finally the moment comes for Nelly/Nelly to be introduced to her former friends, who believe her to have died in the camp. Johnny and Nelly are reunited with their friends during a seemingly joyous and peaceful lunch in a country inn. The cl