Zwei Leben

You can read summaries of this movie's plot line elsewhere. This movie is all about Juliane Kohler's heart-searing portrayal of a woman coming to terms with her past. For me, five stars on Netflix, ten stars on IMDb.

Some have written that the plot is implausible. It is not. It is fascinating. I had never before heard of Juliane Kohler until coming across this movie on Netflix, but I now expect to see everything I can find with her. She is absolutely riveting. Her astonishingly expressive face is the centerpoint of every scene. In fact, at nearly fifty years of age, she is more beautiful than photos I have seen of her in movies ten and twenty years earlier.

Too, Liv Ullman is wonderful as her mother. I haven't see Ms. Ullman since her films with Ingmar Bergman in the late 50's and 60's, followed by the wonderful "The Emigrants". She has been too long away from the camera.The rest of the cast is also excellent. But Ms. Kohler: oh my, oh my, oh my.