Transit

The German director Christian Petzold explores the phantoms of European migration and identity. His film Transit, an extraordinary anti-historical experiment, harbouring a number of melodramatic and political motifs, relocates the original story, taking place at the time of the Nazi occupation of France, into the present. The protagonist, Georg, assumes the identities of dead people, which allows him to obtain the necessary visas and flee the country, setting sail on one of the last ships leaving Marseille. By doing so, however, he also faces onerous consequences. After arriving in Marseille, he finds “his” wife, whom he knows from the letters written to her by her erstwhile husband. Is Georg, possessing a new identity, ready to assume a new relationship and new future?