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Yella (Nina Hoss) has just gotten a job in Hannover, and her ex Ben
(Hinnerk Schönemann) offers to take her to the trainstation in order to
get there - but of course, Ben is slightly psychotic, and instead of
heading for the trainstation he steers his car off the next bridge into
the river below. Miraculously, Yella survives and makes it to the train
just in time - only to learn in Hannover that there is no job for her, as
the company she was hired at has just gone bust. However, at the hotel
she's staying at, Yella meets Philipp (Devid Striesow), an executive at a
private equity company who hires her as his assistant for a few important
meetings. She eventually finds out that he uses his position to cheat and
blackmail his clients, but doesn't mind in the least - in fact she
supports his schemes. Eventually, the two even become lovers ... Still,
there are two things bothering Yella, that's her ex Ben, who shows up
rather randomly, sometimes even in her room, and her recently rather weird
fascination with water. Yella learns that Philipp needs another 200,000
to quit his job (and schemes) and invest in a business of his own, so she
tries to blackmail one of his clients (Burghart Klaussner), only to later
have a vision of him dead ... and really, she finds him dead in a lake
near his house, which is when ... ... she is back at the beginning of
the movie, in the car with Ben, who drives the car off a bridge, killing
them both. A very obvious, yet uncredited and unauthorized
remake of Herk Harvey's drive-in cult classic Carnival
of Souls from 1962, but replacing that movie's macabre yet lyrical
mood with elements of an economic thriller/satire - until the surprise
ending, that doesn't come as a surprise to anyone who has seen Carnival
of Souls, as the parallels throughout the film are just too
obvious to ignore them. Being less original than it's supposed to be
doesn't necessarily make Yella a bad film however, fine
performances by Nina Hoss and Devid Striesow, a subtle yet elegant
directorial effort and stringent storytelling see to that, but still, if
you have seen Carnival of Souls,
this film holds no surprises, and if you haven't, then you should probably
see that one instead of Yella.
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