Rose | 2026 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review

A Self-Made Man: Schleinzer Explores the Privilege of Pants

If there’s a trough line (beyond the eponymous titles) of Austrian director Markus Schleinzer’s films, it’s a connective theme of humans who try to restore equanimity in their personal lives by defying cultural constraints placed upon them. His provocative first film explored the desperation of a pedophile in Michael (2011), while 2018’s Angelo found an 18th century African slave rise to acclaim as a court mascot, eventually secretly marrying a white woman. These sentiments are perhaps most crystallized in his third feature, the somber, captivating Rose. Set in 17th century Germany after the Thirty Years’ War, it focuses on the titular woman who we actually never meet under that name because she’s been masquerading as a man. They are expertly portrayed by Sandra Hüller, a composite of hundreds of researched historical accounts of women who passed as men, taking a ‘path of the pants.’

Rose (Hüller), who served as a soldier for ten years as a man, arrives in a sleepy Protestant village with inheritance papers for an abandoned farmstead. The villagers are suspicious of the rather strange ‘man,’ who bears a disguised face and is of slight stature. However, they allow the man to settle in, calling him the ‘Master,’ and so he employs hired hands to work the land he owns. Rose earns their trust by shooting a bear who mauls one of the villagers in the storm, and so, time passes comfortably. But Rose wants to expand the little empire she’s built, which inadvertently leads to a marriage with Suzanna (Caro Braun), an ignorant young woman who we eventually learn has some secrets of her own. But fate comes knocking, and the townsfolk aren’t sure if they really believe Rose is who he says he is.

Schleinzer utilizes effective narration (voiced by Marisa Growaldt), adding a constant strain of fatalism through Rose’s tale. Utilizing his usual DP Gerald Kerkletz, the crisp black and white countryside eventually bleeds into Carl Theodor Deyer territory, the subject matter feeling like a proto-noir with its stolen identity parameters. It’s made clear Rose becomes the catalyst of her own undoing through greed, her desire to expand her farm leading to an arranged marriage. But the already suspicious villagers seem to be eagerly monitoring the Master’s performance, and still, Rose’s luck holds when Suzanna surprisingly becomes pregnant and gives birth.

There are several films dealing with women undergoing similar circumstances, posing as men out of desperation, such as Osama (2003) and Sworn Virgin (2015), but Schleinzer slyly leads us into an incredible emotional investment with Rose and Suzanna, who almost succeed with creating their own corner of freedom in a world which otherwise denies women anything of the sort. Within the confines of its ninety-minute running time, an impressive amount of detail underlines compounded events in the slick pacing, which includes a bear attack and an unfortunate demise orchestrated by bee stings rendering Rose incapacitated and in need of medical attention.

Hüller is quite exceptional as the disfigured human grimly determined to succeed, sacrificing pleasure and comfort for control. Having survived a bullet wound to the face, she chews on the flattened metal hanging around her neck, a comforting reminder of what she’s been through. Caro Braun’s Suzanna provides some (brief) levity as an innocent but sweet counterpart to Rose, together becoming something of a frontier queer couple who have figured out a way around the abject misery otherwise destined for them. As we bleed over into the tragic denouement of Rose, the narration confirms the necessity and the inherent power of such a historical recuperation. It recalls the oft used phrase “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” But those who do, despite the men desperate to erase a record of their lives, are the evidence of the possibility to create one’s self, and reject the status quo projected upon us all.

Reviewed on February 15th at the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival (76th edition) – Main Competition. 93 mins.

★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆