Transit

Music Box Films | Release Date: March 1, 2019

6.7	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 46 Ratings

USER RATING DISTRIBUTION

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Watch Now

Buy on

Stream On

Expand

Review this movie

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Please sign in or create an account before writing a review.

Check box if your review contains spoilers

0 characters (5000 max)

User Reviews

User score By date Most helpful

TVJerryMar 26, 2019

A lot about this narrative is never explained. For starters, an invading nation is occupying cities in France, but it's modern day (more or less, there are no cell phones or computers). A man is tasked with carrying papers by an acclaimedA lot about this narrative is never explained. For starters, an invading nation is occupying cities in France, but it's modern day (more or less, there are no cell phones or computers). A man is tasked with carrying papers by an acclaimed writer to Marseille, but he becomes involved in a confusing and contrived combination of relationships. Even with the questions, I was willing to see where it went, but the plot kept folding in on itself. Then, there are elements (like a narration) that make it even more obtuse. Some might be up for deciphering the layers of mystery, but I just found it weird and unfulfilling. In German and French with subtitles.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

All this user's reviews

Bertaut1Aug 26, 2019

Built upon a fascinating temporal dissonance that works well, but the narrative is painfully dull and the characters taciturn Based on Anna Segher's 1942 novel of the same name about a German concentration camp survivor seeking passage fromBuilt upon a fascinating temporal dissonance that works well, but the narrative is painfully dull and the characters taciturn Based on Anna Segher's 1942 novel of the same name about a German concentration camp survivor seeking passage from Vichy Marseilles to North Africa, Transit is built upon a fascinating structural conceit – although it tells the same story, it is set in the here and now. Well, parts of the milieu are from the here and now. So, although cars, weaponry, and police uniforms are contemporary, there are no mobile phones or computers, and people still use typewriters. This means that the film is set neither entirely in 1942 nor entirely in 2019, but in a temporal halfway-house, and this works well, as Petzold doesn't suggest that history is repeating itself, but rather that there's no difference between then and now. Unfortunately, aside from this aesthetic gambit, not much else worked for me.

In Paris, Georg (Franz Rogowski) is entrusted with delivering some papers to George Weidel, a communist author. However, he finds Weidel dead, having committed suicide. Taking a manuscript, two letters from Weidel to his wife Marie, and Weidel's transit visa to Mexico, Georg travels to Marseilles. When he goes to the Mexican consulate to return the belongings, he is mistaken for Weidel, and he realises he has a chance to escape, with Weidel booked on a ship sailing in a few days. As Georg waits, he has several encounters with a woman, who, it is soon revealed is Marie Weidel (Paula Beer), who is waiting for word from her husband. Not telling her that Weidel is dead, Georg finds himself falling for her.

In terms of cultural signifiers, Petzold keeps it vague, although there is a reference to Dawn of the Dead (1978), with the closing credits featuring "Road to Nowhere" (1982). However, for everything that locates the film in the 21st century, there's something to locate it in the 1940s. Along the same lines, Petzold keeps the politics generalised, with no mention of Nazis, concentration camps, or the Holocaust.

The combination of liminal elements of modernity and period-specific history sets up a temporal/cognitive dissonance which forces the audience to move beyond the abstract notion that what once happened could happen again. Instead, we are made to recognise that the difference between past and present is a semantic distinction only, and that that which once happened never stopped happening.

The other important aesthetic element is voiceover narration. Introduced as Georg begins reading Weidel's manuscript, there's no initial indication as to the narrator's identity or when the narration is taking place. Additionally, he's unreliable, as he often describes something differently to how we see it. The narration also "interacts" with the dialogue at one point – in a scene between Georg and Marie, their dialogue alternates with the VO; they get one part of a sentence and the VO completes it, or vice versa.

However, although I liked the temporal dissonance, the VO didn't work, pulling me out of the film as I tied to answer questions such as where and when is the voice coming from, are we hearing a character speak or someone outside the fabula, how can the narrator have access to Georg's innermost thoughts at some points but not at others, etc?

But the film has more problems than just the VO. To suggest the disenfranchised nature of what it is to be a refugee, Georg is a non-person; he's passive, less a protagonist than a witness. This passivity combines with a dearth of backstory and character development, whilst Rogowski plays the part without a hint of interiority. Easily the most successful scenes in the film are those showing his friendship with a young boy, Driss (Lilien Batman), because they're the only moments where he seems like a person rather than a narrative construct, they're the only scenes that ring emotionally true.

In relation to the lack of forward narrative momentum, I understand that Petzold is trying to stay true to the experience, that the life of a refugee involves a lot of waiting, repetition, and frustration. But it's the extent to which the film goes to suggest this. Yes, inertia is part of the theme, but it doesn't follow that the film needs to be so unrelentingly dull.

Easily the most egregious problem is one that arises from a combination of these issues – it's impossible to care about any of the characters. There's no pathos; none of them have any psychological verisimilitude or interiority, and they simply never come alive as people.

An intellectual film rather than an emotional one, Transit is cold and distant. The temporal dissonance works well, but it's really all the film has going for it. Petzold says some interesting things regarding the experience of refugees in the 21st century vis-à-vis refugees of World War II, and the mirror he holds up to society isn't especially flattering. If only we could care about someone on screen. Anyone.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

All this user's reviews