Pink: fascinating Sandra Hüller (review)

Awarded at the last Berlin festival, the German actress carries on her strong shoulders this extremely stylized film featuring a woman pretending to be a man in 17th century Europe.

The sweetness of the title is as deceptive as the film’s heroine. In the 17th century, as the wars of religion hit Europe, a woman pretends to be a man in order to reclaim an estate in the heart of the German countryside. If the community first welcomes this “revenant” as one of their own, doubts about his identity begin to arise. By his very style – ultra-contrasted and grainy black and white, rigor of the frame, harshness of the subject – Markus Schleinzer represents through this discomfort of identity the pain of being in the world.

From the Austrian filmmaker, we still remember his unbearable Michael (2011), a free transposition of the ordeal of Natascha Kampusch, sequestered for eight years in a cellar. Here, Rose’s (Sandra Hüller) concealment is seen as a provocative gesture against a population gullible by greed. Where the Dane Dreyer (The Passion of Joan of Arc…), whom we think of, called for transcendence through the image, Schleinzer constantly reduces his story to its concrete, almost trivial dimension (“You want to see my genitals, right?” the protagonist belches to the peasants ready to burn her alive).

Here the rawest realism rubs up against the apparent artificiality of the staging (we border on the auteurist pose). At the center of all attention, Sandra Hüller’s face becomes the sensitive territory of the film. His gaze, both sad and bravado, unfathomable and penetrating, conveys a thick mystery.

By Markus Schleinzer. With Sandra Hüller, Caro Braun, Marisa Growaldt… Duration: 1h34. Released September 9, 2026