In Tranzit (3 Stars)

A few days ago I watched "The Brylcreem Boys", a film about an unusual POW camp in Ireland. "In Tranzit" (sic) is about an equally unusual POW camp in Russia. Before you ask me, the answer is No; I don't know the reason for the strange spelling in the title. The film is based on a true story, and from what I understand it's close to the true events, even though the names have been changed.

In 1946 a Russian women's prison is about to close down. The reason isn't stated, but judging by the ruined buildings I assume that it was damaged in the war. All we see is that the prisoners are all transferred to other prisons. Before the staff can be transferred elsewhere a new purpose is found for the prison. 53 German prisoners of war are sent to the prison, of whom two are dead on arrival and are dumped in the courtyard. This leads to the extraordinary situation that all the prisoners are men, but the camp's commander, the guards and all the other staff are women.

At first the men think they can take advantage of the women, but an example is made in the first few minutes. When a German prisoner breaks rank to take the jacket from a dead soldier he's shot dead, and his body is hung upside down in the courtyard as a warning to the others.

The Russian Colonel Pavlov, portrayed splendidly by John Malkovich, visits the camp occasionally to check on the prisoners. He tells the guards that there are SS officers hiding among the normal soldiers with false names. Two are uncovered within a few days and taken to nearby Leningrad to be hanged in the street, but he suspects there are others. The men should be persuaded to betray one another.

A subject matter like this offers a lot of possibilities for kinks, but it's kept to a minimum. One exception is a scene where the men are forced to strip naked in the snow covered courtyard.

The men are herded into a shed where they're sprayed with cold water and told to wash themselves. The guards think it's funny. Girls just wanna have fun.

The camp guards hate Germans and are cruel to the prisoners from the start. The only person who treats the POW's with dignity is the camp doctor Natalia, played by Vera Farmiga. She's taking care of her husband Andrei, who is suffering mental damage after his head was injured by shrapnel. He's the only Russian man in the camp, but he's a mental wreck. Natalia begins to feel attracted to one of the prisoners.

As the film progresses, the sexual tensions between the Russian women and the German men bubble to the surface. The cook gets pregnant, and she's ordered to have an abortion to avoid a scandal. Other Russian women who live nearby have affairs with the men when they leave the camp to work. That seems difficult to believe. Russia (the Leningrad area) is presented as a place where there are hardly any men. The Germans have killed them all. What feelings would be stronger, the hatred for the killers or the desire for replacement men? I would have thought the former.

This isn't an easy film to watch. It's slow moving, gloomy and depressing. There are no good guys in the film, everyone is bad, the Russians and the Germans. It's just a matter of who is less bad than the others. It's an evil story that takes place in an evil world. The film is interesting, but it's not something I can watch more than once.

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