Anyone who has read this blog for long knows I have a soft spot in my heart for period piece dramas. I even recently enjoyed the glittery and not-at-all true to life series Bridgerton on Netflix. Today I want to share my quick thoughts on something entirely different in the world of period films. This time it is Effigy: Poison and the City and it is a grisly tale by way of Germany about one of Europe’s first female serial killers.

Director Udo Flohr does a lot on a small budget and crafts for us the story of real-life murderer Gesche Gottfried (or the Angel of Bremen) played by Suzan Anbeh. They do a very good job of making Gottfried a morally ambiguous character. At times she seems to be a Kevorkian type character who is helping people who want to die. Then she seems to be out for revenge. At other times she’s an outright crazy person. We don’t really know what version of Gottfried we are going to get next. All we know is that we need to keep the poison or ‘mouse butter’ away from her.

The story is told from the perspective of a female law clerk Cato Bohmer (Elisa Thiemann) who is assigned to help a senator (Christoph Gottschalch) investigate the ever illusive Gottfried. She deals with her own discrimination as a female in mostly a male world of politics and law. There is a side of her that seems repulsed but also fascinated (maybe even attracted) to Gottfried. Again, the movie leaves the relationship ambiguous in a way most domestic films wouldn’t. We are allowed to wonder what the characters are thinking and yet their choices and motivations are clear. I wish more American dramas had a similar trust in their audience.

There are times the budget is obvious in Effigy and it feels more like a TV movie than a feature film but if you are interested in a Dateline from the 1820s with some good performances it’s a small film worth checking out.

7 out of 10

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