STELLA: A LIFE (STELLA. EIN LEBEN) – Review by Betsy Pickle
There’s irony in the title of the German film Stella: A Life (Stella. Ein leben), a dramatic thriller that looks at the Holocaust from an out-of-the-ordinary perspective.
The main character, Stella Goldschlag (Paula Beer), is a spoiled young woman who’s – not surprisingly – a bit self-centered as she takes her initial steps onto the stage of adulthood. Her parents, Toni (Katja Riemann) and Gerd (Lukas Miko), adore her, her friends admire her and young men lust after her.
Stella dreams of going to America and becoming a famous jazz singer. She has an engaging voice and obvious star power. But her aspirations are sailing in rough waters in the months after Adolf Hitler invades Poland and starts World War II.
The Jewish Goldschlag family is in obvious danger in Nazi Germany. Gerd, idealistically, doesn’t want to leave his homeland. Toni urges him to take action. Stella realizes that things aren’t good, but she can’t help but view it as a personal affront.
Stuck in a tense holding pattern, the family goes about its routine cautiously. Stella winds up married to one of her many beaux, Fred (Damian Hardung), but he’s not the stalwart soul she’d hoped he’d be. As the story progresses, Stella has a parade of men wanting her, using her, betraying her and helping her – and she doesn’t hesitate to want, use, betray and occasionally help them in return.
Many dramatic films depicting the Holocaust treat the setting as though it’s a history lesson, giving it a reverent patina. Director Kilian Riedhof tears through the streets of Berlin with urgency, terror and suspense, coming up for air in brief spurts. Riedhof, who co-wrote the screenplay with Marc Blobaum and Jan Braren, insists on flesh-and-blood action, and the realism is intense. Viewers will feel the violence.
It isn’t always easy to keep the characters straight. Stella’s male Jewish friends generally share a pretty-boy look and an undisguised yearning, while the Nazi uniforms tend to give a sameness to the oppressors. There are exceptions – some kinder, some crueler – helping the film achieve suspense.
The story has some holes, but Beer’s Stella keeps them from distracting. Beer deftly maneuvers Stella through an emotional mousetrap, always trying to stay a step ahead of the inevitable punishment. It’s a remarkable performance.
Stella is based on a real person, and watching Beer in action makes Stella’s trajectory believable. She starts out with the uncomplicated greediness of a naive child, and a part of that never leaves her. But the hard circumstances that befall her mold her into a not-so-naïve survivor, and it becomes obvious that greed is one of her strengths.
That’s not to say that Stella is a likable protagonist, but she’s understandable. And she definitely doesn’t come out unscathed.
Stella’s up-close-and-personal immersion in fascism might lead to some interesting comparisons for those who want to connect the current U.S. political climate to the era of Nazi Germany, but that wasn’t likely Riedhof’s intention. By focusing on a real-life person, he makes viewers put themselves in Stella’s shoes and ponder what they might have done under the same circumstances. It’s a sobering experience.
