When Fear Speaks Through the Eyes
Children are our future – the birth of a child is a miracle in itself.
We have read about or heard it many times, haven’t we? How much of it do we, as adults, experience as a reality in which we should rejoice, despite certain difficulties in creating and nurturing a human being, to follow his/her future with eyes wide open? When such slogans become dry platitudes, then a real trauma, a frightening story, makes us pause for a moment, because even the gods are silent before the truth. We experience it all in this beautiful visual ode to the lost childish smile of the twelve-year-old Karla, a girl from a small German town, in the debut film of the same title by the young director Christina Tournatzés.
Set in 1962 and inspired by a true event, with a screenplay by Yvonne Görlach, the film Karla (Karla, 2025) and its main character (amazingly portrayed by a first-timer in front of the camera, Elise Krieps), simply grabs our attention and holds it until the end, provoking utterly conflicting emotions. Since childhood, Karla has been sexually abused by her father—a confident performance by Torben Liebrecht—as her mother is “shrunk, bent and void,” by the stereotype of women who are ignorant and afraid to be alone, and the idea of pater familias. She ignores the actual situation, deceiving herself that this is how it should be, that Karla is challenging her husband and therefore Karla must be punished, but she cannot be bothered about the type or manner of the punishment. The darkness in which Karla’s broken soul has been smoldering for years is evident through her gaze and silence.
With its first frame, the director hints to the audience that Karla is to be a visual metaphor of a brave, young, and fragile soul’s emotional destruction. Unshielded, ignored by those who should help her, left alone in her pain. As a white window curtain flutters in the quiet breeze, and we watch the intense smoking of a cigarette, imagining the yellowed fingers and the summer breeze accompanied by the buzzing of flies—a cinematic atmosphere created for an idle summer afternoon—Karla, located off-center in the frame, tries to hide in her imaginary world to the point of being invisible, when, unexpectedly, someone’s hands grab her. Without being visually explicit of the act itself, Christina Tournatzés introduces our senses to inexplicable pain. Then, unexpectedly, a walk in nature, and an escape; then a panting body trembling in front of the high gates of the iron fence of the palace of justice. In front of the high, impenetrable gates, Karla stands. Her clothes are simple, neat, reminiscent of documentaries from the Nazi era, in which girls wear ribbons and high stockings, hold flags and salute at a parade.
Yet, it’s as though Karla is unaware of all this. Her hair is tightly tied in a bun, her face completely exposed, her dark eyes full of fear. She insists on meeting with Judge Dr. Frederick Lamy (portrayed by the international film icon, the beloved actor Rainer Bock), with the idea of pressing charges against her father for physical and sexual abuse. Despite the help of the judge’s secretary, Erica (Imogen Kogge), Karla has a hard time finding words, despite the questions asked by the judge, with his patience and great curiosity. But here is the solution for Karla to find the way to the judge’s heart and gain his trust to the end: a tuning fork. An exceptionally powerful stage prop. We perceive the impressive directorial concept of silence that speaks or is in the process of being loud, like a final animal roar, or holler. And so the drama begins. The characters take their places, emotions boil, and musical cadences emphasize the excitement and anxiety of what may follow. Florian Emmerich’s camera consistently builds its depiction of this drama’s era, using the warm yellow gamma known in films shot on 35 mm, and the dark corner in each frame where Karla’s invisible SELF exists.
The static shots atmospherically blend with the quiet, seemingly calm and serene figure of the central character, immersed in her own vulnerability and endurance; they also match the bewilderment of the viewer. This chosen framing style creates anticipation, with countless twists and turns. But Christina Tournatzés has chosen the most difficult but also the most effective path: through a series of flashbacks, imaginatively placed throughout the film; with the puritanical shots of the contrasting characters from the monastery where Karla temporarily takes shelter before the trial; with details of the heat, the humility of her family and the obvious fear, the questioning looks of the audience, the wicked figure of the devil in ceremonial robes, and the perpetrator of the crime, Karla’s father. With all of these she offers us a film that will long be debated by both the audience and critics. In this first case of such a trial in Germany, fortunately, the truth comes to light and justice prevails in an extremely emotional, powerful human story, a turbulent children’s drama. Tournatzés, skillfully and surprisingly maturely, creates a structure that captivates with the fullness of the director’s creation: the precisely rendered story, short and even sometimes unspoken yet clear dialogue, rich and memorable acting performances, the subdued gamut of the camera depicting a time in Germany that abounds with political and social changes, and tonally pure design, thought out to the last detail. A film drama that opens up and re-examines our thoughts about justice in the world of children, about the childhood that we all need to defend.
Gena Teodosievska
Edited by Robert Horton
© FIPRESCI 2025