Rose Trailer: Sandra Hüller Leads Berlinale Winner and Austria’s Oscar Entry

In a year of impressive performances, Sandra Hüller’s best outing may very well be in Markus Schleinzer’s Rose, a film that earned her the Berlinale Silver Bear prize. Austria’s official entry to the 99th Academy Awards will arrive in select U.S. theaters beginning December 11, and now MUBI has unveiled the new trailer and poster.

Here’s the synopsis: “Amidst the turmoil of the Thirty Years’ War, somewhere in Germany, a mysterious soldier appears in a secluded protestant village. Small and quiet, his face disfigured by a scar, this stranger declares himself the heir of a long-abandoned farmstead and produces a document to support his claim to the suspicious villagers. With time, he overcomes their doubts and shows himself to be a hard-working, God-fearing man, becoming part of the community in a quest for acceptance made up of impossible deceit. The true and twisted tale of a deceiver of land and folk, who, defying her birth as a woman, comported herself as a man and committed many a wicked deed.”

Rory O’Connor said in his review, “If the credibility of period filmmaking can be measured by whether the audience is able to imagine a character scrolling on an iPhone, Markus Schleinzer deserves recognition for his contributions to the genre. The Austrian director’s latest, a macabre, pseudo-folktale titled Rose, is set in 17th-century Germany and looks as if it was shot there, too. After some introductory narration (read with dubious cheer by Marisa Growaldt), we meet Sandra Hüller’s eponymous war veteran—a woman who’s been presenting as a man for years (“There is more freedom in trousers”, she later explains)—just as she encounters a group of villagers near the plot of land she’s come to falsely claim. It’s nighttime, and the scene is lit by torch fire—all the better to show the asymmetries of the faces and establish the textures and potential threats of Rose’s world. It feels like something from another era.”

See the trailer and poster below.