Paul O’Rourke
IF you’re looking for an alternative to the fast and furious action of Hobbs and Shaw or the sugary rainbow colours of ‘Angry Birds 2’, you might want to check out the Irish Film Institute for something altogether darker and more reflective.
‘Transit’ is a German/French co-production from director, Christian Petzold, which tells the story of Georg, a German refugee in Nazi occupied Paris, who gets hold of the transit papers of a dead writer, Weidel, and assumes his identity in order to flee to safety.
Georg heads to the port of Marseilles to await his ship to Mexico, but it’s here that he meets and falls in love with Weidel’s wife, Marie, and that’s when things spiral out of control and really begin to get complicated.
The strangest aspect of this movie, but something that works very well, is that while the story, which is based on a 1944 novel by Anna Segher, was originally set during World War II, the film is clearly set in the present day.
Years are never mentioned, we don’t see anyone using modern technology, and yet no great effort is made in the staging or locations to pretend we are back in the 1940s.
But this technique somehow works effectively, perhaps because right wing politics is once again on the rise in Europe, and perhaps because the story of refugees seeking transit papers to secure their passage to a better life is also something we can unfortunately still relate to.
Franz Rogowski, the German Joachim Phoenix, turns in a compelling performance as Georg, as does Paula Beer as Marie in a movie short on laughs but high in compelling drama.
‘Transit’ is an intelligent offering with a gripping story and solid acting that we award a review score of four, moving stars.
And if subtitles or right wing politics really aren’t your bag, you might want to take the kids along to see ‘Uglydolls’, or ‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’, where Dora the Explorer faces her most dangerous adventure yet – High School. Who said there wasn’t variety at the cinema.
