88 mins |
Rated
TBC
Directed by Christian Petzold
Starring Paula Beer, Thomas Schubert, Matthias Brandt, Enno Trebs, Langston Uibel
For over 30 years, the German director Christian Petzold has been making “films in the cemetery of genre cinema.” Many of these riff off influential novels and films like Edgar Ulmer’s Detour, James McCain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls, to address both the legacy of Germany’s ruined postwar period and how policies forged during this era continue to inform many of its political weaknesses. Such is the case in Transit (2018), his adaptation of Anna Seghers’s Holocaust novel of the same, which he displaced to modern times, creating a powerful corollary between the obstacles impeding Jews from leaving Europe during the rise of fascism in the 1930s and the plight of migrants seeking refuge in the EU today.
His latest film, Afire (2023), takes a more oblique approach toward present-day politics, revolving around the ongoing climate crisis. Inspired by American and French summer movies like David Robert Mitchell’s The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010) and Éric Rohmer’s The Green Ray (1986), Afire takes the form of a comedy foregrounding sex and leisure all the while a portentous wildfire looms in the background.
- Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer, SCREEN SLATE
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For over 30 years, the German director Christian Petzold has been making “films in the cemetery of genre cinema.” Many of these riff off influential novels and films like Edgar Ulmer’s Detour, James McCain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls, to address both the legacy of Germany’s ruined postwar period and how policies forged during this era continue to inform many of its political weaknesses. Such is the case in Transit (2018), his adaptation of Anna Seghers’s Holocaust novel of the same, which he displaced to modern times, creating a powerful corollary between the obstacles impeding Jews from leaving Europe during the rise of fascism in the 1930s and the plight of migrants seeking refuge in the EU today.
His latest film, Afire (2023), takes a more oblique approach toward present-day politics, revolving around the ongoing climate crisis. Inspired by American and French summer movies like David Robert Mitchell’s The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010) and Éric Rohmer’s The Green Ray (1986), Afire takes the form of a comedy foregrounding sex and leisure all the while a portentous wildfire looms in the background.
- Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer, SCREEN SLATE
