In The Fade (Fatih Akin, 2017): Germany | France

Reviewed by Ish Malik at AFI Film Festival 2017, Los Angeles.

In the Fade by Fatih Akin is an eye-opening film that it based of true events. This is the kind of film that will make you have goosebumps by the end of it. ‘In the Fade’ is perfectly structured and maintains the same amount of intensity throughout. Fatih Akin does a very graceful job in capturing the emotions of Katja, a young woman, who loses the love of her life and her only child in a bombing. The sole purpose of this bombing was to kill non-germans. The killers were sympathizers of the neo-nazi party. These murders and bombings happened in the early 2000’s and targeted Turkish residents that resided in Germany. The film is mostly based around how Katja (Diane Kruger) copes with her unimaginable loss than the actual even of bombing.

What I found profoundly interesting is that the film has numerous hidden symbols and meanings that drive the story along. Fatih Akin really focused of delivering a hidden meaning aside from the actual message in the story. For instance, the clothing that the killer was wearing was very close to the clothing that Katja was wearing when she kills the killers. I believe that the director was trying to convey that life is a circle and what you send out into the world, comes back to you in some form or the other. Also, the movie had a very dark setting and gloomy weather that represented Katja’s feelings. As the movie went along, the weather and the setting got brighter, conveying that Katja is coping from the great loss she suffered. Lastly, I think the period blood was very symbolic as well. In the first half of the movie, Katja stops getting her period, this could mean one of two things. A) She could either be under tremendous stress or B) she could be pregnant. If she is pregnant, it gives her hope for a better future and continuation of the legacy of her husband. This helps her keep going in the film. At the end of the movie, She finally gets her period, she either almost starts feeling ‘guilty’ for moving on from this awful tragedy or she loses hope because she realizes she isn’t carrying her dead husband’s baby. This is when she finally gets closure on the whole situation. She merges in the scenery and finally ends up killing herself and the killers of her finally. She is finally at peace.

The symbols and the metaphors of “In the Fade” is what makes this film so extraordinarily iconic.