Transit

German Director Christian Petzold's latest, TRANSIT, follows in the line of his excellent movies PHOENIX and BARBARA as another exploration of individual identity during periods of high political tensions. Based on a WWII novel, Petzold made the conscious decision to not be another period piece by setting in the present. Or, did he? The world we find in TRANSIT is like a parallel alternate reality. All shot in present day France. No visual effects. But, there is something off. Most of the clothes and props the main characters wear and use seem to come from the 1940s. Europe has been plunged into some unspecified war. Refugees are being expelled. Others desperate to emigrate legally to the Americas. Transit visas are like gold. Georg (Franz Rogowski) is a German stuck in Marseilles. By chance he acquires a Transit visa from another man, but, this requires him to take on the other man's identity. A mysterious woman, Marie (Paula Beer, recently seen in the exceptional NEVER LOOK AWAY) seems to keep appearing before him. Always elusive. Eventually, they meet, only to make things more complicated. Petzold is after something very tricky here. Without ever fully explaining the world he is building, we are plunged into it often leaving the viewer as baffled as the characters. The parallels to the refugee crisis in present day Europe are obvious (Georg interacts with an African woman and her child, and later, with a Muslim family), but never hammered home. Stylistically, Petzold has created an odd blend between a Noirish CASABLANCA and a totalitarian Orwellian 1984 present, all by way of Antonioni's THE PASSENGER. The past and present fold in and out, like something out of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. TRANSIT is a heady mix that won't be for all tastes, and Petzold doesn't fully command this world as well as he has in his past features. Still, it's a movie that's hard to shake. The acting is quite strong including the two leads, and a particularly strong supporting bit by Barbara Auer. TRANSIT may not be to the level of Petzold's previous few pictures, but, it's a worthy entry that lingers in the mind.

This is an excellent, if somewhat heavy drama. Excellent acting. The plot obviously romanticised and, given the dystopian premise, unbelievable yet eminently relatable. A reverse WWII refugee story of love and self realisation.

I enjoyed it and certainly felt a note of anguish at refugee plights the world over.

A good movie!

Highly recommended. Imaginative setting, letters of transit, Occupied France, unrequited love, maybe a bit slow, making it seem a bit long at times, and an enigmatic ending, of course. The German actor a doppelgänger of Joaquin Phoenix. A sometimes intense, always intelligent, certainly worthwhile 'art' film set in Paris, Marseilles and your imagination. We all have waited in a bar, a glass of wine in front of us, waiting for a woman we love.

Very well acted this movie reproduces perfectly the depressing mood of the time when the book was written(1944). Great idea to place it in the modern France.

Being original in the medium of film, when coupled with a fresh perspective for commonly repeated stories and themes, can lead to memorable performances with unique and refreshing interpretations, as seen here (although it seldom works with Shakespeare unless you modernise the dialogue). A 1940s passage is reimagined today within the bounds of those trying to escape conflict at a French port through any means they can establish, with the ever present threat of the authorities constantly and aggressively trying to prevent them. While the times may have changed and their reasons for escape evolved, this dilemma still remains in the real world today for some, to migrate at haste to survive.