film fest gent - officiele selectie ‘transit left me, quite honestly, very cold, i had no connection with the film whatsoever. this feeling comes from a person who liked ‘phoenix. the distinctive style christian petzold brought to the film phoenix was a kind of romanticism that felt wrong in all the right ways, transit tries to emulate that by also using vibrant colors and using warm slightly underexposed lighting. in ‘phoenix this resulted in a picture shrouded in mystery, helped greatly by a main character who besides knowing her story keeps a mysterious aura around her. always hinting to something more, something she keeps tightly hidden underneath that facial coverage of hers. this film also tries to have a mysterious main character but there is mystery lacking ; the film almost bluntly tells her story and thus undercutting all the mystery that was potentially there. the film constantly uses a voice over wich in my opinion doesnt seem needed. it, again, takes away from the mystery the film had the potential of having. the film initially focuses on the budding relationship of the main character and the boy. this relationship is the heart of this film, if you count on this film for having one, that is. the relationship gives slight insight on how our main character was before the inciting incident, a lover and player of football, a genuinely friendly and caring person. sadly the film shifts focus to a much more predictable and superficial relationship where the emotional dilemma seems quite simple and, to be honest, quite boring. it is strange to me that the director would turn away from an already established and far more interesting emotional conflict. visually the film takes its? cues from previous christian petzold films, yet the world feels a lot less lived in and in comparison the world feels a lot smaller, too small maybe ; keeping itself restrained, using only a handful of sets, which is fine but the used sets fell continuously under utilized. also the previously mentioned stylistic choices that worked so well in ‘phoenix dont work well here, they make the world feel almost hightend in reality sadly making it feel fake. while this film is definitely not without its moments of charm, it was an overall disappointing experience especially after such promising previous work.