Rich Whites Pay To Have Their Souls Deposited Into The Bodies Of Poor Blacks In Sci-Fi Drama “Transfer”
Initially profiled this German flick back in September, when it was selected for Fantastic Fest 2010. There was no trailer at the time, but one surfaced earlier this month, and I just stumbled upon it.
As I said in my initial post, at the time, the ideas here simultaneously intrigued, as well as scared the shit out of me!
On one hand, it may provide for an intriguing opportunity to explore race, privilege, class, identity, ethics, the nature of being/consciousness and more, on film, and maybe in ways that we haven’t quite seen before; on the other, it could wear its ignorance on its sleeve (assuming it is of course flawed in that way), and be nothing more than an exploitative (even though well-intended) piece of fiction… an experiment gone completely wrong… especially at the hands of a white European filmmaker.
German filmmaker Damir Lukacevic is its director. The film was released in Germany last year, but nowhere else since.
It’s is called Transfer; and here’s the breakdown:
At the Menzana facility, customers with the financial means to do so can sidestep the constraints of this mortal coil by having their consciousness and memories implanted into the minds of young, healthy bodies, primarily those of immigrant Africans and other third world residents who agree to participate in the procedure for the money their families will receive.
The film opens with a consultation session for potential clients Herman and Anna (Hans Michael Rehberg and Ingrid Andree), a wealthy German couple entering their twilight years. While both have ethical concerns about the procedure, Herman is deeply worried by his wife’s failing health and both fear the day that death will separate them. Their initial hesitation to the transfer procedure gives way after Anna learns that she has but months to live. She and Herman soon return to Menzana and commit to purchasing the bodies of Apolain and Sarah (B.J. Britt and Regine Nehy), two refugees from Africa who have been specially selected for their compatibility with the body and brain chemistry of the aging couple. Under the conditions of the transfer, Herman and Anna have use of their new bodies for 20 hours a day. When they sleep, their hosts Apolain and Sarah return to consciousness and are able to use their own bodies for a period of four hours.
Again… hmmm… a love story between an older white couple, with a black refugee couple essentially playing the vessels (literally) to accommodate that love story. I hope you can understand my trepidation. And the below trailer does little to comfort me.
If anyone has any further info on it, or has actually seen the film, chime in…
Here’s the new trailer:
Transfer (2010) Review
The annual Lund International Fantastic Film Festival has begun. Last year there was not as many science fiction movies as I hoped for, but I got to see the Swedish premiere ofMoon (2009) which compensated for that. This year I’m going to watch three films of the genre and first out was the German movie Transfer. The movie takes place in a future where science have made it possible to rent or buy someone else’s body and transfer your mind into it. A rich old couple from Germany decides to do that and the bodies they get are from two black Africans, who by doing this makes sure that their families get money. A couple of hours every night, the owners gains control over their bodies again, and during those occasions they fall in love and after a while the hosts and the guests begin to communicate with each other. Suddenly there are four persons in the relationship and not everyone is happy about where this is going.
The movie is based on a short story calledThousand Euros, One Life by Eli Barcelo, but director Damir Lukacevic was encouraged to develop it into a feature film with a budget of € 1,200,000 instead of the € 100,000 that was planned from the very beginning. Compared to most American sci-fi this is no money at all, but the movie has a great production value. One reason for this may be that it is shot with the digital RED One 4K HD camera (instead of 35 mm or 16 mm film) which makes it cheaper, but also affects the look in the way the image becomes cleaner. The only negative thing about the technical aspects of the production, I noticed, was that the editing sometimes felt a little strange. Either because of the editing department failing in experimenting or, more likely, that they didn’t shoot coverage for everything and ended up with lack of material in the editing room, forcing them to use jump cuts and such.
The movie has an almost too obvious theme about seeing things in black or white, both in the colour of the main characters’ skin, but also in the way they argument. Transfer gives a new perspective of the relation between the rich and the poor in the world. In this movie we see how Europeans exploit Africans to the degree that “we” take over their bodies. This makes it sci-fi, but is a good metaphor for how we make others give up their life for our well being, without really knowing or considering the costs. The African couple do sign their contracts by free will, but the question is how free the choice really is. Lukacevic does a good work in showing the structural racism in the European society, which is put into another perspective when the same racist tendencies are shown by Apolain, one of the Africans. At the same time other characters argue that things are not that simple, and that they have to think beyond the colour of the skin and see that we are all humans with the same basics needs for love and freedom. I liked these themes in the story very much, but they could have been explored further and deeper. Also, the plot is not as good as it could have been. However, I liked what I saw, and this being the second good German sci-fi movie I have seen this year, Pandorum (2009) being the other one, I’m really looking forward to see what comes next.
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Martin Wikner
Science Fiction film theory student at the University of Lund & freelancing movie maker.
>via: http://martinwikner.com/transfer-2010-review/