“Transit”– Movie Review

This week, I attended the opening night for the retrospective of German filmmaker Christian Petzold at The Film Society of Lincoln Center , screening his latest drama, “Transit”.  

Synopsis

When a man assumes a stranger’s identity to escape the Nazis, he becomes involved with the man’s wife – but will she remain if she learns he’s stolen her husband’s identity?

Story

Georg (Franz Rogowski) is one of the lucky ones.   Despite being a German refugee who fled to France to escape the Nazis, he now finds himself endangered once again.  The Nazis have just reached Paris and begin rounding up people suspected of being Jewish.  Needing money, Georg accepts an offer to deliver some letters to a fellow German named Weidel – a writer also staying in Paris until it’s safe to return home.  But upon arriving at Weidel’s apartment, Georg finds the man has committed suicide.  Curious and seeing a sample of the man’s work, he takes the manuscript and some other papers before leaving. 

Later, Georg goes through the papers and finds they include documents that will allow him to not only leave Paris, but to leave France altogether.  Determined to escape the Nazis, Georg heads to Marseille, where he awaits passage on an ocean liner.  While there, he runs into a woman named Marie (Paula Beer), who is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her husband – who just so happens to be Weidel.  As Georg becomes romantically involved with Marie, he cannot bring himself to tell Marie her husband is dead – or for that matter, that he has assumed the man’s identity.

The Nazis start moving in on Marseille as the date for Georg’s cruise draws near.  Marie is conflicted – as much as she wants to save herself, she can’t leave when there’s a chance that her husband may suddenly show up.  At this point, Georg gets an idea:  he’ll have the consulate update his papers so Marie can join him onboard.  It seems like an excellent plan until Georg suddenly learns a friend of Marie’s is also trying to flee the Nazis but can only manage a dangerous climb across the mountains.  Can Georg arrange for all three of them to board the ship before all of France falls to the Nazis?   

Review

“Transit” the movie is based on “Transit” the 1944 era novel by Anna Seghers – a story very reminiscent of the classic “Casablanca”.  Unless you are familiar with this book, it’s hard to know how close the film is to its source material.  Having said that, “Transit” the movie is rather difficult to watch – although perhaps frustrating would a better word to describe the experience.  Although it’s never explicitly stated one way or the other, the story obviously takes place during the time of the second world war – but you would never know it by the clothes, cars or other things that might be considered a giveaway.   

It doesn’t end there.  Other items that cause “Transit” to suffer are the sudden and unexpected use of a narrator and the time spent with certain ancillary characters.  With respect to the use of the narrator, it’s a rather curious device introduced in an unusual manner; he is unknown to us until much later and while on some level he knows Georg, we discover his familiarity with him is superficial.  Regarding the extraneous characters, it would appear that so much time is spent on them because it was difficult to flesh out the relationship with Marie.  Spending more time with Marie would have given the audience the opportunity to have more of an emotional investment in their romance.   

Following the screening, there was an interview with director Christian Petzold, who said the book on which his movie is based is considered a must-read in Germany, even though it may be less familiar elsewhere.  The novel was recommended to him by a friend who later passed away and caused him to temporarily halt work on his adaptation.  In his interpretation, Petzold was not interested in making a period piece; although the story clearly takes place during World War II, he didn’t want any visual clues (such as the clothing or the cars) to suggest it was in that time.  To Petzold, the title “Transit” has multiple meanings – the transportation out of France as well as the fluidity of time travel.