‘Karla’ review: A young girl seeks justice in delicately calibrated German debut

Dir: Christina Tournatzés. Germany. 2025. 105mins

Silence is sinuous in Christina Tournatzés’ delicately calibrated function debut, at occasions thrumming with rigidity and unstated fears, at others chatting with the stoicism and interior energy of its younger central character. It’s Germany, 1962, and Karla (Elise Krieps) is just 12 years previous when she runs away from her household and enters a police station looking for justice towards her sexually abusive father. Sympathetic decide Dr Frederick Lamy (Rainer Bock) and his secretary Erika (Imogen Kogge) take up Karla’s case, and the query turns into whether or not they might help the teenager break by means of her personal silence and make her voice heard.

 Elise Krieps leaves a long-lasting impression in her first lead position

Karla world premieres at Munich earlier than launch in Germany this autumn. It may properly spark curiosity from festivals and arthouse distributors elsewhere, not least due to the presence of worldwide star Bock (Inglourious Basterds, The White Ribbon) and Krieps – the daughter of actors Vicky Krieps and Jonas Laux – who leaves a long-lasting impression in her first lead position.

We by no means instantly see the assaults by Karla’s father (Torben Liebrecht) however the spectre glints up repeatedly in fleeting gauzy flashbacks, dominated by the disturbing sound of buzzing bugs as Karla tries to narrate her story. The teenager’s bravery is all of the extra exceptional given that is Germany within the Sixties: a interval when, throughout the globe, kids had been purported to be seen and never heard.

Tournatzés and screenwriter Yvonne Görlach – whose script relies on the true story of a member of the family – current each aspect of Karla, as Florian Emmerich’s digicam stays on her stage and retains the concentrate on the teenager all through. The buttoned-up, heavy fabric costume design from Tatjana Brecht-Bergen and Julia Kneusels makes her appear even smaller and extra weak.

Krieps’ watchful nervousness is infectious and Tournatzés’ resolution to eschew scoring and let the motion play out principally as a chamber piece provides to the airless rigidity that’s generated as Karla struggles to put out what has occurred. Questions additionally dangle over its influence on the decide’s profession, as he should exit on a limb if he’s to assist her. The dark-brown dominated, smoke-laden manufacturing design from Maximilian Streichert provides to the sturdy sense of interval, with the script additionally reminding the atrocities of the Third Reich lie within the not-so-distant previous.

Though the main focus is on Karla’s seek for justice, she can be seen in lighter moments after being given refuge in a convent run by the strict Sister Theresa (Ulla Geiger) and the place she is befriended by fellow resident Ada (Carlotta von Falkenhayn). Whereas Ada may have benefited from extra complexity by way of character, the inclusion of those scenes helps to bolster some extent Karla articulates verbally later to the decide – that her life shouldn’t be outlined by her father’s actions. The looseness and comparative levity of the convent interactions additionally gives respite from the decide’s oppressive workplace and, later, the court docket, and makes the tensions in these official areas all of the extra palpable.

Extra typically, the director finds energy in distinction, with cautious sound design from Darius Shahidifar fuelling the temper. That is typified by the flies buzzing in Karla’s reminiscence, and by the purity of the sound of a tuning fork that Lamy makes use of to assist Karla minimize by means of the jumble of her feelings. Whereas the main focus is on Karla, Gorlach’s script is sharp when skewering grownup culpability. Karla battles to take management of her personal life, significantly in nerve-jangling court docket scenes in the direction of the movie’s conclusion, as denial and complicity discover themselves within the dock.