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You just had to be there when writer\/director Markus Schleinzer<\/a> debuted with \u201cMichael\u201d in 2011. The former casting director of Michael Haneke<\/a> and Jessica Hausner, Schleinzer\u2019s debut was not a pretty sit, one that outdoes \u201cRoom\u201d to this day in the annals of movies about ritualistic abuse happening under confinement: Seemingly inspired by Austria\u2019s notorious case of Josef Fritzl, who kept a family in captivity, \u201cMichael\u201d concentrated on a pedophile who abducts a 10-year-old boy and keeps him locked in a soundproof room in his basement. <\/p>\n Where that film<\/a> pushed the limits of austerity and asceticism in terms of rigorous formal control and the utter depletion of emotional affect, Schleinzer\u2019s third feature after \u201cMichael\u201d and the 18th-century European slave trade epic \u201cAngelo\u201d uses that style to, this time, actually devastating aims. With a despairing soul and rage roiling in its heart, the starkly composed and mesmerizing \u201cRose<\/a>\u201d stars Sandra H\u00fcller<\/a> as a 17th-century German soldier who\u2019s survived a bullet to the face and resulting disfigurement circa the end of the Thirty Years War. She\u2019s also learned to disguise herself as a man to move more fluidly through the world.<\/p>\n Not since Sally Potter\u2019s breakout feature \u201cOrlando<\/a>\u201d has a film explored gender privilege so effectively through a historical lens and via a singularly astounding European actress (then, it was Tilda Swinton) to such powerful effect. Playing Rose as a kind of gender-bending Joan d\u2019Arc who will inevitably face plenty of persecution of her own, Oscar-nominated \u201cAnatomy of a Fall\u201d and \u201cThe Zone of Interest\u201d star H\u00fcller is tremendous in a role that allows writer\/director Schleinzer to transcend the it-puts-the-austerity-in-Austria trappings of his compatriots; \u201cRose\u201d is nothing short of shattering, and the centrifugal force of H\u00fcller will, by the end, suck you into all her protagonist\u2019s hurt. It\u2019s an achievement built entirely upon emotional elisions, in almost imperceptible modulations of gesture and expression \u2014 especially in a final scene that cuts to black like a guillotine.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat joy it brings me to imagine what else is possible,\u201d says Rose, a seeming philosophy of a way of movement through life, a life where she\u2019s found \u201cmore freedom with trousers,\u201d binding her breasts and even wearing strap-ons deemed later as the \u201chorn\u201d and the \u201cspike\u201d when called for \u2014 which inevitably means any acts of penetration must be done from behind. Rose\u2019s appearance \u2014 bulleted, scar-tissued, shorn of any feminine silhouette whatsoever \u2014 passes enough for a man\u2019s that she\u2019s able to wend her way into a farming community by conniving means after burdening another battle.<\/p>\n Referred to only as \u201cthe soldier\u201d by the villagers, or \u201cthe master\u201d by her future stablehands, Rose leverages her agricultural prowess to take over duties on a farm in a rural German Protestant village, a farm she claims is rightfully her own. In a ruse that, for lack of a more astute reference point here, feels very Don Draper-coded, Rose poses as the dear male soldier who died next to her in battle, figuring why waste the deeds to perfectly decent land, or his name.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The land, Rose is told, is more challenging than expected, the seasons wounding, the woods stalked by bears. A surly local framer (Godehard Giese) has offered Rose one of his five daughters, with Rose opting for the eldest, who it\u2019s strongly implied has been sexually assaulted by her father; this is, after all, a world where submitting to assault is compulsory, where attacks on women or anyone evincing gender or social difference are just another day on the farm. Thus, the only freedom women can find is in each other, and unbeknownst to Suzanna (Caro Braun), Rose is using her as a safe harbor to evade the repressive structures of being a woman. A series of events, from an unexpected pregnancy to a bee sting, sends the town into quiet hysteria even while Rose and Suzanna\u2019s initially transactional relationship takes an understated shift toward tacit understanding and, maybe, meaningful companionship.<\/p>\n To that end, \u201cRose\u201d turns out to be a bracingly queer-political drama hiding in plainer clothes, and one far afield from any sort of agitprop, its profound statements on gender and sexual identity as sneakily engulfing as a crop infestation. Similarly to how queer individuals are portrayed in historical dramas as living their freest lives in the shadows, Schleinzer\u2019s screenplay, which is based on similar stories of women disguised as men throughout Europe\u2019s past, alludes to what could look like something like a private idyll for Suzanna and Rose. But it\u2019s one that, once the townsfolk catch wind of what could actually be between Rose\u2019s legs, is met with the proverbial (and not so proverbial) pitchforks and torches. You could certainly embrace \u201cRose\u201d as a trans allegory, but as a tale of nonconformity, it\u2019s appropriately open to a multiplicity of readings. But one reading not up for debate: Schleinzer is a master craftsman in total, unclenching control of his material from start to crushing finish.<\/p>\n Also not to be left out of all the praise this film deserves: Norwegian-Irish singer\/songwriter Tara Nome Doyle\u2019s entirely a cappella score, which gives \u201cRose\u201d the hallowed feeling of something holy, but also of history\u2019s ghosts in the hall passing through. Visually, \u201cRose\u201d is sculpted to the molecular level in black-and-white by Schleinzer\u2019s returning cinematographer Gerald Kerkletz, who places viewers in the mind of Carl Theodor Dreyer well before H\u00fcller\u2019s performance invokes Maria Falconetti as cinema\u2019s most quintessential martyr. Schleinzer constructs a canny bait-and-switch: The film\u2019s visual language, agrarian setting, and seeming emotional distance at the outset promise a harshly unfeeling European arthouse exercise. Until it isn\u2019t. Until H\u00fcller annihilates your heart.<\/p>\n Grade: A-<\/p>\n \u201cRose\u201d premiered at the 2026 Berlin<\/a> Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.<\/p>\n Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/a>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You just had to be there when writer\/director Markus Schleinzer debuted with \u201cMichael\u201d in 2011. The former casting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[8797,96,10923,2332,158109,2839,129,31980,157243,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-432433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-festivals","11":"tag-film","12":"tag-markus-schleinzer","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-reviews","15":"tag-rose","16":"tag-sandra-huller","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"'Wuthering](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771425852_454_MCDWUHE_WB036_747a20.jpg\")
<\/a> ![\"Rose](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771425852_77_Black-Brown-Minimal-Feminine-Moodboard-Photo-Collage-1-1.png\")
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