Transit (Christian Petzold, 2019)

[DarkImbecile]

Transit, Christian Petzold’s follow-up to Phoenix, picked up by Music Box Films for a 2019 US release.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Transit, Christian Petzold’s follow-up to Phoenix, picked up by Music Box Films for a 2019 US release.

No Nina Hoss??? That said, Paula Beer was in Ozon's excellent Frantz.

[zedz]

It's a very good film, but Paula Beer is no Nina Hoss (even though Petzold seems to want her to be very much indeed). Fortunately, she's not the focus of the film. In the film it wasn't just the lack of Hoss that I felt, but the lack of the Hoss / Zehrfeld chemistry that offset some of Petzold's trademark coolness in the previous two films.

[domino harvey]

Petzold's best film, Gespenster, also has no Hoss and manages just fine

[How rude!]

Petzold's best film, Gespenster, also has no Hoss and manages just fine

This is his finest film, by far.

[denti alligator]

Petzold's best film, Gespenster, also has no Hoss and manages just fine

This is his finest film, by far.

Great film, to be sure, but it's no Phoenix.

[Aunt Peg]

I was surprised at how little screen time Paula Beer had in this. I simply cannot stand Franz Rogowski who reminds me of a poor man's Joaquin Phoenix - I've seen him in four films in the last few years and he is almost always the weakest element. I did like the visual look of Transit and some of its ideas but I can't say I've ever held much enthusiasm for Christian Petzold beyond Barbara and Nina Hoss.

[soundchaser]

I caught this last night at a festival (a last-minute replacement for Assayas's new movie, which was pulled the day of), and even though I was slightly annoyed given the circumstances, I thought it was pretty strong stuff. The central conceit

SpoilerShow

of placing a World War II story in a contemporary setting

was a hurdle that some of the folks I saw it with didn't get over, but it both engaged me more than a standard approach and put the parallels that are often implied to today's world strictly at the forefront. The main romance doesn't always work, in part because the lead performance isn't exactly astonishing, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

[FrauBlucher]

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of placing a World War II story in a contemporary setting

That sounds very interesting. That will create lots of discussion in light of today’s sensibilities.

[hearthesilence]

I thought this was terrific. Conceptually this is brilliant. Time is fused together in a way that never feels self-consciously clever, and the effect is powerful. The familiar details of the story - the dread surrounding an occupied country, particularly for those who are no longer welcome, and the terrible deeds executed in the name of nationalism - no longer feel like history lessons. They're like distant memories given the immediacy of the present, with the solace in knowing it's past replaced by fear for an unknown future.

[TMDaines]

Really liked this. Might be Petzold's best. It was finally time to get away from some of his familiar casting choices, and whilst this does still feel very much like a Petzold film still, it delivers a far more satisfying overall experience that will leave you still pondering the next day. Not quite a thriller, but something other than a conventional drama, the film gives you just enough exposition to engage. The setting is very clever and uncanny, some sort of slightly parallel universe that has a feel anywhere between the 1940s and 2010s.

[denti alligator]

I liked this quite a bit, but I found the voice-over narration to be distracting. It was also unnecessary, in one case even superfluous. Besides that I thought the film worked, especially the way its retelling of Kafka‘s Before the Law (which is itself retold in another way in the film as the last writing by Weidel) becomes a different kind of parable for the limbo of the refugee.