Anna
Seghers’ later years were rather sad, because it was glaringly obvious the
Soviet Communist system she had so loyally served failed quite miserably to
live up to the ideals it professed. At least she had post-war years. Herr
Weidel is not so fortunate. The fictional novelist was supposed to travel the
same route that Seghers did, from (still just barely unoccupied) Marseilles to
Mexico, by way of the USA, but the morose man of letters chose to end his life
instead in Christian Petzold’s Transit
which opens this Friday in New York.
Seghers’
novel was important beyond its literary merits, because it documented the
Holocaust-era roundups as they were happening. It is about as particular to a
specific time and place as a novel can be. However, Petzold ventures way, way
out on a limb by recasting his screen adaptation in a Marseilles very much like
that of today. Eventually, viewers start to suspend disbelief, but it is
unnecessarily distracting in the early going.
Georg
is a refugee, which makes Transit feel
very contemporary, except not exactly. The rather sullen gentleman is at loose
end, trying to avoid prison cells and policemen in the final days leading up to
the occupation. Georg was supposed to hand-deliver letters to Weidel letters from
his considerably younger wife, Marie, and the Mexican consulate in Marseilles,
which has guaranteed Weidel legal asylum. Instead, Georg found the remains of
his suicide in the small, sad motel room.
The
initial idea was to turn over Weidel’s papers and correspondence to the Mexican
mission, in hopes of receiving a finder’s fee, but when he is mistaken for
Weidel, Georg does not correct them. Georg assumes he fell into a highly fortuitous
deliverance, but things get rather complicated when he meets the distraught
Marie. Thus, begins a strange kabuki dance involving identity, love, guilt, and
culpability.
Even
with Petzold’s temporal gamesmanship, the combination of classic last-boat-out,
letters-of-transit intrigue and the more postmodern unraveling of Georg’s sense
of reality and identity are quite compelling. Despite the Mediterranean sun,
Petzold maintains a murky, disconcerting atmosphere. Yet, he keeps breaking his
own spell with the modern trappings that so clearly contradict the 1942 setting.
Admirers
of Petzold’s absolutely brilliant previous films, Barbara and Phoenix might
be alarmed to discover the great Nina Hoss is not on board this time around,
but Paula Beer continues a similar streak of excellence, which includes her
standout work in Frantz, Bad Banks, and
Never Look Away. As Marie, she creates
a portrait of a usually sensitive and brittlely flawed femme fatale. She forges
some ambiguous but rather poignant chemist with Franz Rogowski, who radiates
existential angst and plodding sad sackery as Georg. Yet, it is Godehard Giese
who really drives home the film’s messy humanism, as Richard’s Marie’s loyal
friend-lover-protector.
