Bruxelles-transit (1980), shown in the U.S. as Brussels Transit, is a semi-documentary written and directed by Samy Szlingerbaum.
We tried to compare the movie to other films we've seen. Nothing came to mind. In our experience, this film is truly unique.
The director's parents and sibling came to Brussels as refugees from Poland after WW II. The story of their experiences after leaving Poland is narrated--in Yiddish--by Szlingerbaum's mother in voice-over. In the first part of the film, the mother relates her experiences traveling by train from Lodz, Poland to Paris and finally to Brussels. On the screen, we see film clips of trains and train stations in modern-day Brussels.
In the second part of the film, Szlingerbaum's mother relates her experiences as a young wife and mother in an alien city. No one we see is actively cruel to her, but there's a tremendous sense of loneliness and alienation in her narrative. During the narration, actors portray the action as told to us by Szlingerbaum's mother. The scenes unfold in a static, almost dreamlike fashion. The photography is in black and white, and the actors are always seen in middle distance.
Someone complained that the French film Look at Me was too slow. Look at Me is an action-packed thriller compared to Brussels Transit. You have to approach this film expecting long periods in which virtually nothing happens, interspersed with shorter periods in which two or three characters interact in a muted fashion. If that's not your kind of film, stay away.
Reviewer's note: The Szlingerbaum family almost certainly traveled from some other country--probably Russia--before starting their journey from Lodz. The Lodz ghetto housed 250,000 Jews at one point; less than one thousand of these survived the Nazi Holocaust. If the Szlingerbaums had been in the Lodz ghetto, it would have been virtually impossible for any of them to survive, let alone their entire nuclear family.
My assumption is that the family managed to leave Poland before the Nazis arrived, and then were repatriated after the war. My guess is that Polish Jews were brought to Lodz, and then had to shift for themselves. The Szlingerbaums were fortunate to have relatives in Paris and Brussels, and that allowed them to travel to Belgium to eke out an existence in an environment that was far from ideal, but presumably was better than post-war Poland.
Mrs. Szlingerbaum does not strike one as an upbeat person. In one sense you could say that she should be happy that she survived the Holocaust. On the other hand, life was not easy for her in Belgium, and she probably contrasted the life she was living with the life she might have lived had the Germans not invaded Poland. Most of us have never lived through anything remotely like what this woman presumably experienced, so we're not in a position to pass judgment on her attitude.
We tried to compare the movie to other films we've seen. Nothing came to mind. In our experience, this film is truly unique.
The director's parents and sibling came to Brussels as refugees from Poland after WW II. The story of their experiences after leaving Poland is narrated--in Yiddish--by Szlingerbaum's mother in voice-over. In the first part of the film, the mother relates her experiences traveling by train from Lodz, Poland to Paris and finally to Brussels. On the screen, we see film clips of trains and train stations in modern-day Brussels.
In the second part of the film, Szlingerbaum's mother relates her experiences as a young wife and mother in an alien city. No one we see is actively cruel to her, but there's a tremendous sense of loneliness and alienation in her narrative. During the narration, actors portray the action as told to us by Szlingerbaum's mother. The scenes unfold in a static, almost dreamlike fashion. The photography is in black and white, and the actors are always seen in middle distance.
Someone complained that the French film Look at Me was too slow. Look at Me is an action-packed thriller compared to Brussels Transit. You have to approach this film expecting long periods in which virtually nothing happens, interspersed with shorter periods in which two or three characters interact in a muted fashion. If that's not your kind of film, stay away.
Reviewer's note: The Szlingerbaum family almost certainly traveled from some other country--probably Russia--before starting their journey from Lodz. The Lodz ghetto housed 250,000 Jews at one point; less than one thousand of these survived the Nazi Holocaust. If the Szlingerbaums had been in the Lodz ghetto, it would have been virtually impossible for any of them to survive, let alone their entire nuclear family.
My assumption is that the family managed to leave Poland before the Nazis arrived, and then were repatriated after the war. My guess is that Polish Jews were brought to Lodz, and then had to shift for themselves. The Szlingerbaums were fortunate to have relatives in Paris and Brussels, and that allowed them to travel to Belgium to eke out an existence in an environment that was far from ideal, but presumably was better than post-war Poland.
Mrs. Szlingerbaum does not strike one as an upbeat person. In one sense you could say that she should be happy that she survived the Holocaust. On the other hand, life was not easy for her in Belgium, and she probably contrasted the life she was living with the life she might have lived had the Germans not invaded Poland. Most of us have never lived through anything remotely like what this woman presumably experienced, so we're not in a position to pass judgment on her attitude.
