Diane Kruger delivers a gruelling performance in ‘In The Fade’

In The Fade — the English title of this German film — presents itself as three inter-related films in one.

Diane Kruger plays Katja Sekerci, a German woman who weds her Turkish-born Kurdish husband Nuri (Numan Akar) in a prison, where he’s serving time for drug dealing. Both sets of parents were against the marriage but they marry anyway and have a beautiful young son, Rocco (Rafael Santana).

Six years on and we are in the present time. Nuri is now an honest well-to-do businessman in Hamburg who clearly loves his wife and son.

I won’t be spoiling anything about In The Fade by revealing that in the first few minutes of the film, Nuri and Rocco fall victim to a terrorist bombing, leaving Katja heartbroken and shattered.

She faces an unthinkable grief. Quickly descending into depression and drug use, Katja slowly comes to realise her husband was the target of neo-Nazis, whereas the police wrongfully zero in on his drug-related past to hunt down a motive. A tipoff from one of the criminals’ father, along with Katja’s astute recollection of a suspicious woman outside her husband’s office, leads to a trial, which covers the entire second act of the film.

The question of whether Katja will be satisfied with justice or is she really wanting revenge takes up the last act of the film. It’s suspenseful in a quiet, dread-filled way, and it has an ending you won’t soon forget.

In The Fade is a deeply felt and very bleak film that shows the rise of white supremacy and racism and the social injustices and intolerances that lay less dormant than we all like to believe.

The structure of the film is one that audiences will either love or hate. That said, In The Fade took out the Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language award at this year’s Golden Globes.

Kruger is appearing in her first film in her native tongue after previously acting in French and English-language movies. She is superb, delivering a gruelling and heartrending performance, and deservedly took out the Best Actress award at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

ROK’S RATINGS: 4 out of 5 glasses of bubbly
Rated: MA15+
Genre: Crime, Drama
Directed by: Fatih Akin
Written by: Fatih Akin, Hark Bohm
Release date: March 8, 2018
Production: Bombero International, Corazón International, Macassar Productions, Pathé, Warner Bros

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