TRANSIT

France\ Germany/France, 2018, 101 minutes, Colour.
Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Godehard Giese, Lilien Batman, Maryan Zaree.
Directed by Christian Petzold.

This is a German film about France during the Nazi occupation. It opens in Paris, focuses on a range of people, some about to go to the resistance, others trying to get out of the occupied zone, going south to Marseille. But there is also the ominous threat of the occupation moving south towards the Mediterranean.

The film is directed by Christian Petzold whose films are always interesting, especially Barbara which has an East German setting and Phoenix which has a World War II setting. Many of Petzold’s films feature Nina Hoss as the leading lady. In this film it is Paula Beer who had appeared in François Ozon’s war film, Frantz.
However, unless an audience is warned beforehand, it might find it very difficult to appreciate what is actually going on. What Petzold has done is to take the historical story but film it in contemporary Paris and contemporary Marseille, relying on the dialogue and situations to communicate the Occupation but counterbalancing it with contemporary images. At times, this is disconcerting. However, it makes the point that events like the Occupation can occur at any time.

The central character, a young man called Georg, played by Franz Rogowski (Isabelle Huppert’s son in Happy End, the lead in In The Aisles) who is called upon by a friend to deliver letters to a famous author who is trying to migrate to Mexico. He has been abandoned by his wife but she wants to contact him. What the young man discovers is that the author has killed himself – and he takes a completed manuscript as well as the author’s letters only to find that the friend who commissioned him on his mission has been arrested.

While the contemporary situation does not look threatening, the action of the film is. The young man has to accompany a very ill associate on a freight train to Marseille, which he does, forming a plan that he will assume the identity of the author and make his way to Mexico.

The bulk of the action takes place in Marseilles. There are a number of humane touches, especially with Georg encountering a young boy, a contemporary refugee, and plays soccer with him before he meets the boy’s mother who is deaf-mute. Georg forms an attachment to him and helps him when the boy’s asthma has a bad attack and Georg tracks down a sympathetic doctor, Richard, also trying to get to Mexico to build a hospital, to treat him.

Georg also visits the various consulates, getting his papers ready to go to Mexico, going to the United States for a visa for passing through, being challenged by the official thinking that he is the real author because the official has been dealing with the author’s wife.

There are some emotional complications with the wife anxious to find her husband, finding emotional support from Richard, being offered some hopes for travel by Georg.

This is the kind of film which won’t have a completely happy ending, some experience tragedy, others living with hope and acting on hope. So, it is a reminder of the events of the past while echoing some of the constraints of the present.

1. World War II, familiar themes?

2. The director setting everything in 21st-century Paris and Marseille? The look, the clothes, the people, the language, the migrants in Marseilles, yet talk of the German occupation and its effect? The impact of this dramatic counterbalance?

3. Paris, Marseille, the port, homes and apartments, playing in yards, the restaurants, the consulates? The musical score?

4. The effect of having the narrator, seeming anonymous, explaining Georg and his behaviour? The revelation that he was the man behind the bar?

5. The introduction, the meeting at the restaurant, the letters for the author, paying Georg the money, his going, the hotel, the manager cleaning up, the corpse of the suicide, the manuscript and his letters, Georg taking them, return, seeing his friend arrested?

6. His contacts, the sick man, smuggled onto the train, the dangers with other people being caught, the trip to Marseille, the man dying, Georg’s escape?

7. His new identity as the author, going to the Mexican consulate, the author’s reputation, his wife visiting the consulate? Her wanting to reunite? Going to the American Consul? The discussions about his relationship with his wife, separation and who was to forget first? Documents, signatures?

8. Driss and his mother, Georg and the soccer, the goals, the mother and her being deaf mute? Georg becoming attached to Driss, buying him the new ball? Driss and his being sick, the asthma? The mother coming to the bar, the note, Georg finding the doctor and bringing him? The boy not wanting him in his room because Georg was leaving? Richard coming to visit, helping?

9. The people at the consulate, listening to their stories, the conductor, the Jewish woman with the dogs – and her later hosting Georg the meal, a suicide? Marie and her story?

10. Richard and Marie, friendship, Georg, the sharing of the story? Richard and his going to establish a hospital in Mexico, Marie getting off the boat, still searching for her husband? Richard getting off to follow her? The difficulties, Georg giving them the passes, Marie not wanting, her being depressed? Georg giving the couple the two passes and their embarking?

11. Georg, waiting, in the diner, the discussions, his seeing Marie, her being a ghost, his never having told her the truth and her expecting her husband on the boat?

12. The ship sailing, the ghost, the information about the boat, the discovery that is head a mine and had sunk, all killed?

13. Driss, asthma, sad – but going to the mountains? Georg and Marseille, the occupation, the plan to cross the mountains, the Pyrenees into Spain?