Product Description
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When a man flees France after a fascist invasion, he assumes the
identity of a dead author whose papers he possesses. Stuck in
Marseilles, he meets a young woman desperate to find her missing
husband - the very man he's impersonating.
Review
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Franz Rogowski stars as Georg, a German in Paris during an
increasingly tense and violent occupation. Seghers book was
released in 1944 and set in 1942, so the story at that time was
about the Nazis, but Petzold boldly chooses to update the story
to modern times without really clarifying the threat. We just
know that people are being rounded up and the country is
increasingly unsafe. Before we ve even seen the title card,
sirens have been heard three times. There s a sense of
dread and urgency that s amplified by leaving the threat as
undefined as active cars in the street and enhanced
discussion of things like travel papers. Especially with our
current state of the world and its threats of violence amidst
increased polarization, the themes of Transit have added
resonance by making this a 10s story instead of a 40s one. In
Paris, Georg is asked to take two pieces of correspondence to a
writer named Weidel. When Georg gets to the hotel, he finds a
bathroom covered in the blood of the man he was supposed to meet,
who has committed suicide. He takes the writer's belongings and
jumps a train with a man named Heinz who has been injured. The
two are headed to Marseilles to hop a boat to Mexico, where they
might be safe, but Heinz dies on the journey. Two dead men will
shape Georg s future, guiding him into the lives they left
behind. - Brian Tallerico (4/4 Stars)
--https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/transit-2019
The past and present are a terrifying blur in Transit, a
brilliant allegory set in France that opens amid wailing
sirens. The solitary man in a cafe sipping espresso doesn t
flinch. He is soon joined by a second man who gives him a name:
Georg. Why are you still here, the second man asks, Paris is
being sealed off. In urgent tones, they discuss visas, danger,
money. Georg agrees to deliver two letters and then steps into
streets filled with jackboots and terror, a world in which time
seems to have folded in on itself. An existential thriller about
loss, trauma, statelessness and historical amnesia, Transit is
the latest from the German director Christian Petzold, an
electrifying, original filmmaker. Petzold is likely best known in
the United States for Barbara, a slow-burning drama about an East
German doctor who, after a failed attempt to go to the West,
decides to stay. In Barbara, to voluntarily remain in a
totalitarian dictatorship is an ethical choice, a form of
resistance. There are no valorous choices in Transit, where
leaving is a high-stakes necessity for Georg and the desperate,
panicked refugees around him. To stay is to die. - Manohla Dargis
--https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/movies/transit-review.html
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About the Actor
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Franz Rogowski was born in 1986 in Freiburg im Breisgau,
Germany. The actor is best known for the internationally
successful film Victoria (2015). The German thriller is one of
the few feature films in a single continuous take and won
amongst other things the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic
Contribution for Cinematography as well as the German Film Award
in six categories. Since 2015 Franz Rogowski is a member of the
Munich Kammerspiele. In 2017, Rogowski appeared in the French
film Happy End directed by Michael Haneke.
About the Director
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Christian Petzold was born in Hilden in 1960. After studying
German and Drama at the Freie Universität Berlin, he enrolled in
Berlin's German Academy for Film and Television (DFFB). There he
studied film direction, while at same time working as an
assistant director to Harun Farocki and Hartmut Bitomsky. After
graduation, Christian Petzold made several interesting TV films.
In 2000, his first theatrical feature, The State I Am In (2000),
about a couple of left-wing terrorists, is released and makes a
strong impression and earning its director both the German Film
Award and the Hessischer Best Film Award. By 2012, this prolific
creator has managed to make two more TV films and five additional
features, among which Yella (2007), the sensitive portrait of a
young woman who tries to escape the grip of her violent and
possessive husband, and especially Barbara (2012), which won the
'Best Director' award at the Berlinale. This fine drama plunges
the viewer into the everyday life atmosphere of the GDR like few
films before and serves as a showcase for its director's talents.
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