Jerichow (2008)

September 7, 2008 (Toronto International Film Festival), January 8, 2009, release dates

Directed by Christian Petzold

Screenplay by Christian Petzold

Based loosely on the novel The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain

Music by Stefan Will

Edited by Betinna Böhler

Cinematography by Hans Fromm

Benno Fürmann as Thomas

Nina Hoss as Laura

Hilmi Sözer as Ali Özkan

André Hennicke as Leon

Claudia Geisler as Sachbearbeiterin

Marie Gruber as Kassiererin

Knut Berger as Polizist

Produced by SCHRAMM Film Loerner & Weber, Bayerischen Rundfund und Arte

Jerichow is loosely based on the novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain, which puts this film automatically in the neo-noir category. Betrayal is a major theme of Cain’s novel, and it is a major theme of Jerichow. But the film has some surprises, even for readers like me who have read Cain’s novel. I blogged about the novel on September 7, 2016, and you can find the post by clicking here. (You can also click on the arrow for 2016 in the left-hand column of this screen and then click on the arrow for September.)

(This blog post about Jerichow contains spoilers.)

The opening of the film is eerie and sinister. It starts with a man named Thomas being questioned by two other men, one of whom apparently lent money to Thomas. The sequence could end in violence or not because viewers have no idea what to expect, and it sets the tone for the rest of the film. It also shows Thomas’s capacity for deceit. Viewers learn later that Thomas was dishonorably discharged from the military, which is another mark on his character.

Thomas meets first Ali, who offers Thomas a job. Thomas then meets Ali’s wife Laura, with whom he begins an affair. Later in the film, Laura tells Thomas that Ali was the only respectable man that she had met before she married him, but this declaration of hers also paints a very dismal world for Jericho. None of the characters are either all good or all bad, but many of them would do almost anything to get ahead or to get what they want. Ali in particular spies on Laura, always testing her integrity and honesty, and he beats her. Thomas was a soldier fighting in Afghanistan, and his military expertise comes in handy later in the film: He shows surprising loyalty to Ali by defending him from one of his customers. All the characters are complicated, but Thomas may be the most complicated. He earns Ali’s trust by defending him, but he has an affair with his wife and the two of them plot Ali’s murder.

Fate plays a large role in Jerichow. Ali and Thomas meet by chance, and their relationship starts right away with lies and deceit. Thomas is walking home from the grocery store when Ali has a minor accident, with two of his wheels spinning in mud at the edge of what appears to be a river. Thomas offers to help him, and after he gets into the driver’s seat to get the car out of the mud, a police officer stops to ask Ali if he needs a ride to the police station. (The implication is that the police officer is targeting Ali because he is not a native German.) Ali tells the officer that he wasn’t driving; Thomas was. And Thomas goes along with the lie. Later in the film, after Thomas and Laura have planned to murder Ali and have already set their plan in motion, Ali tells Laura that he is terminally ill and has two, maybe three, months to live. Thomas and Laura don’t have to go through with their plan at all, but their affair is discovered, which leads to tragic consequences.

I liked this film version much more than I thought I would. It changes the plot of Cain’s novel in very satisfying ways, although it is obviously based on the novel. I found Jerichow much more believable than the 1946 film version starring John Garfield and Lana Turner. It’s possible that one of the best reasons to see Jerichow is that reading the novel doesn’t give the film’s ending away. The writer (Christian Petzold, who is also the director) updated the story, and not just the ending, while staying true to the themes and to the characters themselves. It’s almost like the characters (yes, the characters) read the novel along with Petzold and told him what they would change and what they would do in their current modern situations. The world of Jerichow, although inspired by Cain, is complete and current and stands on its own.