Transit
Directed by: Christian Petzold
Written by: Christian Petzold - Based on the novel by Anna Seghers
Starring: Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Godehard Giese, Lilien Batman, Maryam Zaree, Barbara Auer, Matthias Brandt, Sebastian Hülk, Justus von Dohnányi, Alex Brendemühl, Trystan Pütter
Drama - 101 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 6 Mar 2019
Written by: Christian Petzold - Based on the novel by Anna Seghers
Starring: Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Godehard Giese, Lilien Batman, Maryam Zaree, Barbara Auer, Matthias Brandt, Sebastian Hülk, Justus von Dohnányi, Alex Brendemühl, Trystan Pütter
Drama - 101 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 6 Mar 2019
Transit is a modern day Casablanca. The phrase modern day is subjective as the French setting is obviously post-1942, but I don’t see any cell phones. The fascists blitzkrieg south and assume occupying power status over France. The fascists are German because writer/director Christian Petzold briefly flashes a Reich symbol, but in this alternate reality or parallel dimension, either Germany never invaded France in the 1940s or history is repeating itself and they’re doing it again. Minorities, illegals, and leftist intellectuals are on edge and looking for a way out. Deals are struck and promises are sworn to find any way out of France before the storm rolls in and folks are arrested and sent away to camps.
There is a lot of waiting in Transit. On one hand, the growing number of internal refugees fleeing Paris for Marseilles want something to happen. They want foreign consulates to issue transit visas, they want to book passage on the next ship out of port, and they want the latest rumor on how close the fascists are to the city gates. On the other hand, they want nothing to happen. Days pass and daily life seems remarkably static - outdoor cafes serve customers and boys play soccer on ad hoc fields. But you can see the tension on everyone’s face. Everybody knows who is safe and who should be making plans to leave town.
There is a lot of waiting in Transit. On one hand, the growing number of internal refugees fleeing Paris for Marseilles want something to happen. They want foreign consulates to issue transit visas, they want to book passage on the next ship out of port, and they want the latest rumor on how close the fascists are to the city gates. On the other hand, they want nothing to happen. Days pass and daily life seems remarkably static - outdoor cafes serve customers and boys play soccer on ad hoc fields. But you can see the tension on everyone’s face. Everybody knows who is safe and who should be making plans to leave town.
Georg (Franz Rogowski) notices everyone wants to tell you their story, either seeking affirmation or a correction. Waiting in line to get his own passage booked and transit papers out of Marseilles, Georg watches a man compulsively count his 12 passport photos, because “an official told me I must have 12.” Georg keeps bumping into an architect maneuvering around two large dogs while grumbling about veterinary certificates. It’s a bureaucratic nightmare - one just logical enough to be able to form a queue, but impenetrable enough to ensure it does not move. One can only book a hotel room in Marseilles if you show proof you are trying to leave town, as Kafakaesque and paranoid as it gets. You can only stay if you prove you’re leaving.
Georg already escaped Paris. In the sort of haphazard happenstance only wartime chaos can muster, Georg comes into possession of a notorious writer’s last manuscript, personal letters sent to him from his adulterous wife, and a letter from the Mexican consulate ensuring safe passage out of France. This is just after the writer commits suicide, a fact anyone else is highly unlikely to discover. When an official mistakes Georg for the writer, he is in no hurry to clear up the misunderstanding and opts to assume the dead man’s identity - it is his surest way out of France.
In Marseilles, Georg keeps getting mistaken for the dead man by the man’s wife, Marie (Paula Beer, Frantz). We don’t know if the gentlemen look alike, but Marie is certain her husband is alive and in Marseilles, because all the officials keep saying she just missed him. Wartime and its inherent uncertainty have a way of escalating the extremes of our personalities. Some rational people will turn violent and ravenous. Scoundrels may border on the heroic, even if only for their own self-interest. Those with nothing may develop feelings of love and protection. Georg is infatuated with Marie, but cowardly declines to mention the fate of her husband and how he is exploiting the situation. Marie’s plans and relationship to her husband is more nebulous. She claims to love him and wants to find him, but she is also shacked up with another man trying to secure passage out of Marseilles. Does Marie simply hop from man to man depending on who offers the brightest prospects, or are there more shades of grey Petzold slyly hints at between the harsher black and white areas of who has a way out of town and who awaits inevitable doom?
A narrator carries the audience through Georg's inner thoughts; a man repeating to us a story told to him by Georg. Whether or not it is necessary is up to the viewer on if the cheeky maneuver works for them. I enjoyed the voiceover, but can see how the narration may come off as lazy because information falls too easily into our laps - Petzold tells more than shows. Adapted from the novel by East German writer Anna Seghers and capping Petzold’s previous films, Barbara and Phoneix, the directors states Transit is the end of a trilogy called “Love in Time of Oppressive Systems.” Phoenix chronicled a disfigured Holocaust survivor who may have been betrayed by the man she loved - oppressive systems indeed. There is a sense of timelessness and also anachronism in Transit - it takes place on the border of the land and the sea, it is in between time periods of the past and present. It also points fingers at our society’s contemporary issues regarding refugees and uncertainty between those who would accept and protect them and those who would shun them and call the fascists. You can only stay if you prove you’re leaving.
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