Sandra Hüller is formidable in Rose, playing a woman living as a man in 17th-century Protestant Germany

Sandra Hüller gives a formidable performance in Rose, Markus Schleinzer’s austere historical drama about a woman who chooses to live as a man in Germany after the Thirty Years’ War.

Hüller, who won an acting prize in Berlin, impresses once again in a role built around a striking historical premise. The story takes place in the first half of the 17th century, somewhere in Protestant Germany, and follows a woman determined to construct a life under a male identity.

The case itself is invented, but the film draws on dozens of real cases that have been recorded yet remain little known. That foundation gives the story an instructive quality without turning it into a simple historical curiosity. Schleinzer treats the material with the same apparent detachment that marked his previous films.

Rose is the Austrian director’s third feature in 20 years. His earlier films include Michael, a study of a child held captive that competed at Cannes, and Angelo, an examination of historical racism through the story of an African boy who became a court mascot in Vienna. The review presents Rose as a demanding film, but also as a remarkable one.