Review: In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts)
On paper, In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts), the latest effort from writer-producer-director Fatih Akin, reads like a Lifetime movie of the week. However, Diane Kruger's staggering portrayal of a woman who takes matters into her own hands when the law fails to deliver justice ensures that the melodrama is firmly rooted in emotional realism.
The film begins with video footage of the jailhouse wedding between Kruger's Katja, blonde and tattooed, and Nuri (Numan Acar), a Kurdish man convicted for drug dealing. Cut to about six or seven years later: the couple are parents to beloved son Rocco and on the straight and narrow; Nuri is a tax advisor and translator, Katja is his bookkeeper. Even in these brief moments, Kruger and Acar create a believably affectionate couple who are happily mired in domestic bliss, which makes what follows even more heartbreaking.
Having left Rocco with Nuri in his office so she can have a spa day with pregnant girlfriend Birgit (Samia Chancrin), Katja returns later that night to find police surrounding the street. A nail bomb has gone off in front of Nuri's office and, much to her horror, both her husband and son are confirmed fatalities. Her grief and outrage are further compounded when the presumably dormant hostilities between her parents and in-laws, all of whom had been opposed to the marriage, resurface and, most significantly, when she realises that the police are intent on placing the blame on Nuri's criminal connections despite her repeated assertions that her husband was wholly rehabilitated and her theory that neo-Nazis were behind the bombing.
Though Katja turns out to be right and the suspects arrested and charged, she endures an arguably more harrowing ordeal during the trial. Her position as both co-plaintiff and prosecution witness renders her a target for the ruthless defense lawyer Haberbeck (Johannes Krisch), though her friend and lawyer Danilo Fava (Denis Moschitto) is both conscientious and cunning enough to ward off Haberbeck's attacks. As blunt and unsubtle as the first two-thirds of In the Fade are, they actually stand up better to scrutiny than the last-third when the film pivots to a revenge drama. Something in Akin wavers during this section and, whilst Katja's motivations are well-defined and completely understandable, she feels less multi-dimensional here, less a character than a deus ex machina.
For all its faults, In the Fade is ultimately powerful and affecting and filled with remarkable sequences, none more striking than Katja in the bathtub, blood from her slit wrists staining the water as she prepares to submerge into nothingness. Yet from that nothingness she emerges, determined to get justice for Nuri and Rocco.
In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts)
Directed by: Fatih Akin
Written by: Fatih Akin, Hark Bohm
Starring: Diane Kruger, Denis Moschitto, Numan Acar, Johannes Krisch, Samia Chancrin
