The Current Cinema (and on German Blu-ray) - David Hare is an enthusiast for Christian Petzold's TRANSIT

Transit is both mesmerizing and terrifying. The sheer power of the outdoor Scope photography and the glorious depth of color and air is constantly in play with ideas of confinement, refuge, escape, identity and loss. 

I was very wary of Petzold's previous Phoenix  but I will now watch it again very closely. I think Transit, as last year's film, is my contender for best in 2018 along with Schrader's First Reformed. Both films throb with the ache of impending disaster and both directors seem to me to be incredibly alive to the defining issues of our lifetime and perhaps even the time left for mankind. 

Filming the 1942 source novel with all its Vel D'Hiver holocaust round-up narratives in present or near future time was an act of genius, and it amplifies the horror. You don't have to do anything these days other than turn on the camera to film Paris and capture a state of imminent danger and terror. The constant presence of armed military police and armed guards everywhere never lets you forget you are in a state of ongoing emergency. 

Stunning film. Absolutely stunning.