Transfer (2010)

Just a few days ago I had a conversation with a friend and we both agreed that German cinema - at least German "mainstream productions" - has long been on the decline. We remembered the good old 1920s when great directors like Fritz Lang and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau where big global players and German film still had quite wide influence. We both argued that today German cinema lost pretty much of its former relevance. There are of course still some amazing German directors out there; like Herzog, Haneke or Wenders for example. But aside of some autheurs or more unknown independent directors and those who have long migrated to Hollywood there is not much left in the national industry. Especially the mainstream, so we agreed, really lacks quality and inspiration.

I've just seen a quite recent German Sci-fi film called "Transfer" and it certainly had potential. It is a movie about ideas - which is not a matter of course in mainstream cinema these days - but yet it is not very inspiring at all as we have seen most of this stuff in other movies before - and we have seen it done better as well.

"Tranfer" basically goes back to movies like "Blade Runner" and picks up themes of what makes us human and how one's identity is formed and/or possibly manipulated. Is there something like a soul? And if so, is our personality symbiotically connected to our bodies or is the body only a vehicle?

In this 2010 film by Damir Lukacevic an old married couple invests in an futuristic project that transfers their consciousness into the bodies of two younger persons. The result is rejuvenation. The two who were at the end of their lives have now reset their physical decay and can live on as energetic and fresh as ever.
That raises the question if it is okay to escape the circle of life and cheat death in general. Would life be less enjoyable if there was no end? You also might ask who the contributors of the younger bodies are. Here they are socially deprived young men from Third World Countries who voluntarily made themselves available for the project for money in return to support their families at home. This obviously starts off a new discussion about the moral aspects of such a possibility as it would probably be only accessible for rich people coming primarily from western societies. What consequences would that have for a possible future if western civilization gained control over life and death and poor people provide the necessary "containers" to reach immortality? Would that divide the world and seperate us even more? Would that imply a new form of slavery? Would the human body become just a product that you can buy if you can afford it?

In the film the four protagonists share the two bodies of the young black man and woman. For most of the time it's the investors who have the control. But for a few hours at night the former inhabitants of what was once the property of two young souls wake up and are able to continue their own lives - even if only under strict observation follwing tight rules. But is it still their life? Or the life of someone else? Is their identity lost, replaced by another one? Of course the two young characters soon feel mistreated and emprisoned and try to break out. Also the old couple who are quite satisfied at the beginning soon have to face problems especially concerning their social surroundings. Maybe immortality is not the way out of but into a cage. And things get more complicated as the movie goes on and the big corporation providing the technique of transfer is of course soon revealed as evil, greedy and unreliable.

I intentionally wrote down a lot of questions in these paragraphs as a demonstration of what is wrong with the film - even though its ambition might be endearing and the production design and the acting are absolutely fine.

The problem is that not only the movie borrows its central thoughts from earlier films but it is also horribly overstaffed. "Transfer" introduces not only one but eventually a dozen of ideas and is (of course) not able to cover them all in the short running time. It is hinting at problems but hardly ever exploring them really. Racism is another topic that is thrown in along the way for example because the young couple happens to be black. Later in the film they add yet another theme of cloning and genetic manipulation without ever being able to really reflect the consequences and moral issues of what they put up on the screen.
I don't want to deny the fact that the makers where trying to do something more sophisticated but in the end all their ambition can not save this movie. It is without a center and deals with the material in a superficial way. It is all over the place just giving us countless headlines that could probably make it into a film all on their own.

There is also an unnecessary subplot or rather characteristic trait to one of the side characters that did not make any sense to me and at one point felt a little like a narrative device. It also did not give any further insight into the subject(s).

What is also missing is a sense of awe. When the old man walks around in the new body that should be a moment of wonder, a moment of overwhelming power that should have been pointed out. What would it really be like to be in another person's body? Would it not feel incredibly awkward at first? Would an old personality adapt that easily to this new situation? Would there be psychological problems? Would it not be an incredible gift that the characters would need to learn to understand, accept and think about for a long time?  These old people can now enjoy all the pleasures of life again but they are rather presenting it like a great new tool they purchased. Buying a new body is not like buying a new car that you use to show off at your friends' house.
But I had the feeling that the movie did not capture that aspect much more than that. And - to sum it up with one last question - if a movie doesn't have time for such crucial moments and messages why should you take the time to watch it?