Styx
3rd German Film Week

FILM REVIEW 

Styx is something that art-house festivals normally go crazy about, purportedly because of the firmness of its form, how the story is handled with stern rigour, and also how “an allegorical, existential drama” emerges from its bareness. The film’s stark quality owes both to the narrative and its treatment: Rike, a doctor, is shown in the beginning of the film rescuing a man from a car accident. Then, all of a sudden, inspired by Darwin’s writings, she starts planning on a trip to Ascension Island and sails to the Atlantic with her yacht, undertaking the journey on her own. The voyage begins smoothly and full of promise (possibly a self-discovery? or a surprise plot point? or an iceberg?) but her holiday suddenly comes to a halt when, after a storm, she comes across a ship of full of refugees, its passengers jumping overboard to save their lives. She calls for help and is advised to stay away from the boat. Rike is frustrated with how rescue is taking too long as the situation is becoming fatally serious. A young boy who jumps off the ship comes near her boat, and Rike saves and nurses him, realising how little she can do in the face of this large-scale tragedy.
 
The slow burn of Styx could have paid off had director Wolfgang Fischer maximised the premise and preferred movement to mystery. One can easily infer from the sparseness of dialogue and action that the film is emphasising the cruelty that comes from the vulnerability of the situation. The problem is that it is too unadventurous, too calculated in its intention to characterise the helplessness that it ends up being helpless itself, that towards the end the film does not achieve a semblance of insight, or an argument explored into fruition, on the current refugee crisis in Europe. This frustration comes from seeing the opportunities present in the premise that that film decides only to orbit (issues of race in the subject of humanitarian efforts, for example). Whereas the wordlessness and minimalism provide the expected gravitas and tension, qualities that allow the audience to take it seriously, what Styx overlooks is the power of discourse that can be contained and argued in the narrative, not just resorting to mere symbolism or allegory that appeals only to highbrow audiences.

- Richard Bolisay

Richard Bolisay is a writer and film critic based in Manila. His essays on cinema have appeared in various publications online and in print. He is a participant of the Berlinale Talent Press and Locarno Critics Academy, and has been part of the jury of, among others, the Hong Kong International Film Festival. 
Follow him on Twitter @richardbolisay.