Review: 'Undine' is surprising and moving, a sneakily sharp melding of realism and fantasy

The German romantic drama “Undine” is a fantasy steeped in realism — or is it the other way around? — and another example of how writer-director Christian Petzold can knock an audience off balance in the most interesting ways.

When Petzold introduces the title character, Undine Wibeau (played by Paula Beer), she’s sitting at a table in an outdoor cafe, and she’s crying. Her boyfriend, Johannes (Jacob Matschenz), has just told her they’re through, and that he has had an affair with another woman. Undine tells Johannes that he has two choices: Dump the new woman and return with her, or risk Undine killing him.

That sounds like either a psychotic threat or, more likely, a desperate last-gasp effort to rescue the relationship. But there’s also a hint of the mythological — since the name Undine also refers to a figure of European legend, a water nymph who becomes human when she falls in love with a man, but is doomed to die when he betrays her. (The myth is one of the roots for Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” among other interpretations.)

Undine returns to her job, as tour guide for an exhibit of models of Berlin’s changing cityscape, but can’t put Johannes out of her head. That is, until she meets Christoph (Franz Rogowski), a diver who performs underwater welding for a local utility. When this new romance blooms, Christoph thinks it’s fate — because before they met, he found Undine’s name carved on a stone under the water near an aqueduct. But when Christoph suspects Undine is holding something back, the relationship becomes in danger of going under.

Petzold played with genre perceptions expertly in his last movie, “Transit,” a World War II refugee drama filmed in modern settings. Here, Petzold keeps everything as real as can be, which gives the question of whether Undine is mad or magical an unexpected weight.

And, as he did in “Transit,” Petzold capitalizes on the beautiful pairing of Beer and Rogowski, whose onscreen chemistry is by turns tender and explosive. The performances, and Petzold’s sly handling of the story’s fantasy undercurrents, combine to produce a surprisingly moving tale of love, infidelity and revenge.

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‘Undine’

★★★1/2

Available starting Friday, June 4, for digital rental on demand. Not rated, but probably PG-13 for sexual content and language. Running time: 89 minutes; in German, with subtitles.