Styx

In 3 words: I liked it!

Pros: 1) it's wonderfully played. Susanne Wolff is touching and moving, like Gedion Oduor Wekesa. 2) Wolfgang Fischer uses a humble way for addressing the notions of altruism and benevolence. He is neither pedantic nor didactic nor preachy. 3) it is filmed without any special effect and with a breathtaking mastery of the frame; nowadays, it is unusual and then pleasant. 4) The French movie title, i.e. Styx, sounds smart and implies, at least for me, a Google search to explain and connect it with the whole movie.

Cons (a tiny one): although the introduction is quick, it's useless and confusing. We may imagine that Rike's husband died in that car accident and Rike needs then a phase of introspection in order to mourn. Pure deduction... And what about these monkeys? A metaphor?

One of the most realistic movies I've ever seen. I had the impression in the first half that I'm watching a documentary. Only after that I started to foresee what it's happening and I realized that actually it's fiction. Strong directed by Wolfgang Fischer. The actress in the main role, Susanne Wolff, is doing a great good job. But, the most successful thing in this movie, is the cinematography, those marine landscapes that cut your breath.

This film shows the distance between 2 worlds separated by the river Styx, the hate river. The "civilised" world where you are rescued no matter the costs (the navy will come for only one person) and the world where the people are considered that does not worth to be saved, where the people, even that they are like you and me, are treated with disrespect and where lives are not important. None will come to save hundreds.

Susanne Wolff gives a fine performance here as Rake, an emergency room doctor who sets off alone onto the sea, on her sailing yacht, to head towards the isolated Ascension Island, in the South Atlantic. Ascension contains a natural jungle planned and fostered by Charles Darwin. I thought the cinematography here was truly superb from the startling opening scenes and throughout the film.

When Rake comes across a trawler in emergency distress and containing numerous African migrants, she will be faced with the dilemma of her humanitarian desire to help vs. the policies and procedures of governments and their politics. It's a worldwide crisis with no easy answers, and viewers will most likely come down on both sides of the equation.

Overall, I thought the movie maintained a good air of suspense throughout but I was definitely not thrilled with the most ambiguous ending. To note, English subtitles were only available when German was spoken, which was rarely, but I was able to obtain them from my closed caption option on my remote.

One small point before touching the question in the title, that is the title of the movie. For those who didn't put too much effort into their Greek mythology studies. Styx is the name of the river leading from the land of the living into the land of the dead in the Greek mythology. Even more important is the fact that passangers on that river must have money with them or they won't be allowed into the land of the dead and will remain on the river for a century, in a greek version of Limbo.

Now that the movie's title makes sense, I'll discuss my own title. When a director chooses a lean approach to movie making, it means not using camera tricks not using any CGI, but rather making his own presence and the cinematographer's almost unnoticeable. And that's exactly what Wolfgang Fischer does, that is apart from two early scenes in the movie involving monkies. And in my humble opinion the movie would've been better without these scenes.

One last point: when one chooses a lean approach to directing it usually calls for a lot more from the actors. We get only two in this film, and the two of them are superb. Susanne Wolff and Gedion Odour Weseka, don't act their roles, they are the characters they portrey.