A scene like any other: A man sits in a cafe sipping his espresso, eventually distracted by the insistent sirens of police cars rushing by. Suddenly, he is approached by another man who seems to know him from somewhere.

The man tells him that he has a danger visa for the United States, “a visa for people in great jeopardy.”

“You’re in great jeopardy?” Georg smiles, not quite taking him seriously, but still agreeing to doing him the favour of delivering two letters before he will join him on his escape from the city. Suddenly, Georg leaves the cafe, and the film's title appears: Transit.

Against certain expectations one might have, based on the canonical dramaturgy of Hollywood thrillers, the prologue hardly conveys a sense of palpable danger. This impression surely cannot only be attributed to the fact that Transit (2018), German director Christian Petzold's eighth feature film, is not a Hollywood production. While Petzold, a representative of the so-called Berlin School, is known for his matter-of-fact style, and for calculated yet emotionally complex references to classical genre cinema, there is something odd and “off” about the opening scene, precisely because it drifts apart on the level of sound, dialogue, and acting: