Actor Franz Rogowski on the set
Director Christian Petzold (right) with actor Franz Rogowski
Christian Petzold with cameraman Hans Fromm
Petzold with assistant director Iris Jung
TRANSIT
A
Germany France (101 mi) 2018
‘Scope d: Christian Petzold
Everything was on the
move, everything was temporary, but we didn’t know whether this state would
last until tomorrow, a few weeks, years or even our entire lives.
―Ann Seghers, Transit
Visa, 1944
A sign of the times, as few films describe the extent of the
rising tide of fascism better than this one, a portrait of a future oblivion
expressed as a 70’s style paranoid conspiracy thriller that borders on science
fiction, where particularly impressive is establishing a tense, disheartening
atmosphere that never reveals itself, set in a timeless period that resembles
the present or an apocalyptic future, though the disorienting noirish mood
resembles Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s eerie ghost ship from INVISIBLE WAVES (2006),
where characters mysteriously find themselves in a strangely oppressive place
that feels like another dimension associated with death and bleak atrocities,
yet can’t ever manage to find their way out, seemingly stuck in a purgatory of
waiting hopelessly in a state of constant fear and dread, hoping their
opportunity to seize the moment to get out will come soon. Surrounded by
everpresent police raids rounding up what seems like an endless transitory
population of refugees with no papers or proper documentation, an obsession
with law and order prevails, with a compliant public feebly becoming willing
accomplices going along with the status quo, not wanting to be blamed, pointing
out anyone suspicious to the police, creating an invisible underclass always
attempting to avoid the network of police raids. Adapted from the Anna
Seghers’ novel Transit Visa from 1944, the novel describes a wave of fascism
enveloping France during the war, but Petzold expands to a surreal time period,
commenting both on the past and the present with a futuristic depiction of
refugees in crisis. But this is no ordinary film, told without any
backdrop or explanation, narrated by someone mostly unseen who’s not even a
major player, seen only on the periphery in a shot or two, yet he’s a silent
observer who witnesses the state of building hysteria that prevails, commenting
on the dismally sad and desperate times. In much the same way, the world
is seen through the eyes of Georg (Franz Rogowski), the central figure, an
outsider who is himself a refugee that moves around like he’s from the
Resistance, viewed as part of an organized movement, at least at the outset,
continually evading the ever-expanding police presence, where everyone is a
suspect presumed guilty. Escaping on a train from Paris to Marseilles, it’s
clear that we are in a transit zone, both geographical and emotional, stuck in
a state of limbo, with quiet conversations in tiny rooms, in small hotels, or
the bars and cafés of the harbor, where people are forced to hide behind closed
doors and lead lives undetected by the outside world. But something
happens that offers Georg an opportunity, as a moment presents itself to him,
allowing him to exchange identities, like Antonioni’s THE PASSENGER (1975) or
Lynne Ramsay’s MORVERN CALLAR (2002), though it plays out entirely differently,
more like an Angelopoulos film, where characters from the past walk seamlessly
into the future and meet with people from today, all concerned about a grim
future that appears to be deteriorating before their eyes, where this is easily
one of the more hauntingly original films seen all year, filled with novel
surprises, eccentric characters, and lives with meaning, becoming especially
intense at the very moment people are about to lose their freedom.
A beautiful follow-up to 2015 Top Ten
List # 3 Phoenix, arguably Petzold’s best film, a film rejected by both
Cannes and Venice, while this film left Cannes emptyhanded as well, though it’s
surprisingly alert to the transgressions of the modern world, especially in
Europe, where the director is fascinated by the aura of German filmmakers like
Fritz Lang and Max Ophüls who fled to America to escape Hitler, claiming “The
light from Germany went to the U.S.A. in the 1930’s…We have to bring the light
and style back to Germany, especially the noir which was created by Austrian
and German refugees.” And in this film, refugees are hidden throughout
France, filling every nook and cranny, seen scurrying around like rats trying
to escape as a fascist police network is inevitably closing in. While the
murky atmosphere creeps up on viewers, what we learn from the outset is that
Georg meets a clandestine friend at a bar in Paris, told that the city is
sealed off, discussing plans of escape in hushed tones while blaring police
sirens constantly speed past the window, creating an ominous mood. They
talk of a foreign occupation, forged documents, arrests and deportations, while
teams of police swarm through the streets of Paris, recalling World War II, yet
this is clearly the present, absent any use of cellphones. What Petzold
has designed is a parallel universe run by a fascist state of mass surveillance
gone berserk, returning to the Nazi era style of persecution. Georg is
offered a safe passage out of Paris if he’ll deliver a pair of secret letters
to an important writer named Weidel who is hiding in a certain hotel, one from
the Mexican consulate offering safe passage and one from his wife who is desperate
to see him. But by the time he gets there Weidel has committed suicide,
with Georg taking possession of his final manuscript and his German passport,
fleeing to Marseille on a slow train of four days, looking after a deeply
wounded partisan who is in rough shape and doesn’t make it, leaving Georg to
fend for himself. Petzold has done a masterful job creating an
underground network of fear while at the same time an ominous web of
authoritarianism is steadily taking over daily life targeting the innocent, while
the rich with means of escape have already done so, leaving only a desperate
group of survivors intent on finding a means of escape. The
cinematography by Hans Fromm is particularly brilliant on the train sequence,
where the world outside is moving in a blur, while concealed inside is a battle
of life or death, where the consequences couldn’t be more serious.
Marseilles is a sunny port city, with boats slowly moving in and out of the
harbor, yet it’s filled with nationless and abandoned inhabitants intent on
finding a way out, gathered in all the small hotels which are filled to
capacity, charging exorbitant rates, where the bitter irony is that only those
who can prove they can leave are allowed to stay in the dilapidated seaside
hotels, subject to constant police raids who are seen dragging screaming people
out, while onlookers can only stare in utter shock and humiliation. In
this seedy atmosphere of conspiracy and incoherence, Georg must find his
way.
Exhausted and broke, not having eaten in days, his plan is
to visit the Mexican consulate in hopes the writer’s documents will fetch a
small reward, while a desperate woman keeps walking up to him thinking he’s
someone else, terribly disappointed to discover he’s not who she hopes he would
be. In wartime, this kind of mistaken identity probably happens all the
time, becoming easily forgotten, lost in the shift to survival mode, where
everyone’s priorities turn to protecting themselves. While waiting in the
consulate, what’s somewhat mystifying is the overwhelming need for each of them
to tell their stories, as if they haven’t spoken to anyone for days or weeks on
end, becoming desperate versions of themselves that never existed before,
having lost all signs of stability and rationality, where in this Kafkaesque
universe everyone is losing their minds. To Georg’s surprise, he is
quickly identified by the Consulate as the writer himself, where a hefty check
awaits him along with safe passage to Mexico that leaves in a few weeks, with a
message that his wife has been looking for him. He concocts a story of
marital woe, suggesting they split up, where the existential question asks if
the more harmed party is the one who left, or the one being left. Without
spilling any of the beans, the sequence of characters Georg runs into is a
myriad of invention, each one more interesting than the last, adding depth and
complexity to an already lurid atmosphere, as he’s mysteriously intrigued by
their lives, discovering he actually cares, which alters the whole tone of the
film, as these invisible people routinely being ignored actually start to
matter to him. In some cases the results are positively heartbreaking,
especially the relationship that develops between Georg and a young boy, Driss
(Lilien Batman), the surviving son of the man who died on the train with him,
where he quickly becomes a friend and father figure, playing soccer with him,
also fixing a broken radio, even singing a melancholic lullaby that his mother
used to sing, but that all turns upside down when Driss discovers he has plans
to leave, feeling hurt and betrayed, as he’s being totally abandoned once
again. When Driss falls ill, Georg frantically searches for a doctor,
discovering a German pediatrician named Richard (Godehard Giese), who is
romantically involved with Weidel’s wife, Marie (Paula Beer), the one who keeps
running into him, beautiful but particularly vulnerable, where his heart goes
out to her, but he can’t bear to tell her what actually happened to her
husband. The jarring narration heard throughout has a literary feel, as
if otherworldly, like an intrusion from another dimension, all-knowing and
all-seeing, offering a different kind of wisdom that prevails throughout the
picture. Beautifully fleshing out minor characters, each in their own way
contributes to the whole, with Petzold creating a masterclass of confusion and
forged identities, all merging into one, as it’s a picture of the world turned
on its end, suddenly off-kilter and out of whack, where the things that matter
in life are easily discarded like damaged goods, steamrolled into nonexistence,
where only those with precious insight into the living stand a chance of
surviving. Perhaps his most visionary work to date, it’s an extraordinary
expression of love and lost hope, where Petzold’s choice of music playing over
the end credits is a stroke of genius, revealing the power and significance of
all that is getting away from us, short-sighted and preoccupied by our daily
lives and routines, caught up in a whirlwind of terrible choices that may
destroy us all.
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