EXBERLINER Issue 170, April 2018

REVIEWS
Breathe
D: Andy Serkis
(UK 2017)
H
Despite a fine lead
performance by
Andrew Garfield,
Serkis’ directorial
debut somehow
renders the inspiring
true story of a brave
disability advocate
intensely irritating, by
misguidedly focusing
on the ways in which
his suffering is eased
by wealth and privilege.
Starts Apr 19
Petzold’s audacious adaptation
of Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel
about Nazi-occupied France
(see review, page 26) updates the
action to the present day in decidedly
enigmatic fashion, with German
refugee Georg (Franz Rogowski)
evading capture in Marseilles by
assuming the identity of a recently
deceased writer.
Why set the film in the
present day? Well, I’d just made a
period film (Phoenix), and I find it
somewhat boring to deal with all the
props and costumes, the whole aspect
of reenactment. Also, I felt that
no matter how committed you are
to recreating the past, your film is
always fundamentally located in the
time in which it was made. I always
think of my parents, who would see
a historical film and say, “That was
nicely done, it feels like the real
thing.” I think the emphasis should
be on whether we are learning the
right lessons from the past, rather
than whether we’ve recreated the
past accurately.
Transit seems consumed with
the idea that we’re repeating the
mistakes of previous generations.
When I decided to adapt the
WHAT’S ON — Film
“ It’s good for the world
when Germany is in limbo”
Christian Petzold on European identity and the
bold choices of his divisive new feature Transit.
By Paul O’Callaghan
book, I wasn’t really considering a
political message. I was thinking
more about refugees in a looser
sense – people who are fleeing from
something, whether that be political
oppression, a marriage or a job.
But as I was working on the script,
I was astounded to see this ghostlike
situation of the past rising up
again. With UKIP, the AfD and many
others, people are clamouring about
identity, race, ethnicity and culture,
and they’re doing that by trying
to exclude the other, by closing
the borders. Anna Seghers wrote
her book in order to say that these
things should never happen again,
because that way of thinking led to
the death of millions of people. And
yet all these things are happening
again. So the film had to be political.
Why the unusual third-person
voiceover? The novel is written
in the first person, and I generally
hate first-person voiceover in film. I
dislike the trick pulled in Fight Club
and The Usual Suspects, where you
have this buddy-like narrator talking
directly to you, and who ultimately
betrays your trust. I liked the idea of
a voiceover that worked more like a
musical score, underlining the story
and describing what we’re seeing in
a way that may differ from our own
perception. And so I decided to let
this minor character, this barkeeper,
offer his take on events through
voiceover. The voice we hear carries
its own desires and biases, and adds
another layer to the story unfolding
before the viewer’s eyes.
Like Phoenix, Transit is about
mistaken identity. What attracts
you to this theme? I’ve always
loved crime stories where people
forge passports or assume someone
else’s identity. I also like the idea
of a new identity infecting you,
forcing you to change. In the novel,
the protagonist is someone who
doesn’t really play a useful role in
society. But through assuming a false
identity, he learns to feel love, pain
and loyalty, and he finally becomes
human. People who need to run and
hide or try and pass themselves off
as someone else are forced to wrestle
with the idea of identity. On the
flipside, those who say they are rocksolid
about who they are are either
dangerous or stupid.
The film seems to infer just
that: all the problems stem from
Germany having a rock-solid
sense of self. Yes, and thankfully
that isn’t quite the case here at the
moment. I believe it’s very good for
the world whenever Germany is in a
state of limbo, because that means
the country is occupied with itself.
When Germany was quite sure about
how the financial crisis in Greece
should be resolved, for example,
they plunged another country into
total chaos. So a state of transit or
limbo can have its benefits. n
Ghost Stories
D: Andy Nyman,
Jeremy Dyson
(UK 2017)
HHH
This adaptation of a
popular British stage
play is a threepronged
portmanteau
horror fable that gets
turned on its head
in a surreally glorious
final act. Too bad the
theatrical thrills don’t
arrive sooner.
Starts Apr 19
28
EXBERLINER 170