In over sixty years, Frau Krüger had never encountered a student like Jenny. Surprise is a theme constantly revisited and revised in Kraus’s riveting feature about a precocious pianist and her elderly tutor. From the deafening opener to an electrifying finalé, there are few moments that don’t overwhelm one way or another. And that despite an all-too familiar narrative arc that screams of an inevitable US remake, probably starring Annette Benning and Lindsay Lohan. Anchored by the redoubtable Monica Bleibtreu as a feisty, Prussian spinster, Four Minutes is an inspiring drama about human relationships.

Krüger teaches piano to inmates. Jenny has killed a man and could do it again. She is also an accomplished musician who presents her prison with a chance to benefit from favourable press at a national competition. To achieve that, Krüger and Jenny must come together to fight prison authority, a haunted past and each other. As said, this is a familiar territory yet one explored with such emotional integrity that it arrives with the power to seduce the most cynical hearts. As the women fight to overcome instinct that has betrayed them both, Four Minutes is a welcome examination of individual spirit.

Key to the film’s success are Kraus’s finely nuanced characters. He makes them all compelling despite none of them being especially likeable, the ‘negro-music’ hating Krüger included. This fundamental, physical law of attraction and repulsion serves to keep the story’s meter. Although a judicious squeeze in the edit suite would benefit the film’s runtime, it is a minor point in a major work. Four Minutes is a rousing feature that, like Jenny’s final performance, is not something you see every day. Watch it now before Benning and Lohan’s producers render it unwatchable.

// COLIN FRASER