Denis Lavant wanders empty European palaces whispering about memory and you can't look away.
“You buy a book. You don’t really know why. It lies around, and then one day you open it, almost absentmindedly. And there you are, facing your own innermost secrets.” So begins Stan Neumann’s cinematic adaptation of W.G. Sebald’s award-winning novel, Austerlitz. The vaulted and majestic space of the railway station in Antwerp is where our journey really starts with actor Denis Lavant (Holy Motors) addressing the camera directly, and musing on the curious nature of railway stations. This bravura opening is startling, charming, and like the unnamed narrator of the book, you surrender to the proceedings and perambulate alongside Lavant, as he journeys through the great buildings of Europe, faded and shuttered hotels and grand colonnades with broken windows.
Cinematography
Long gliding shots through derelict grandeur that swallow you whole.
Acting
Lavant's direct address feels like being confessed to by a stranger.
Direction
Neumann turns Sebald's footnotes into immersive spatial experience.
Director
Stan Neumann
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Sebald died in a 2001 car crash before finishing any film collaborations; this adaptation was stalled for fourteen years while producers struggled to crack his digressive structure.
The Antwerp station's opening monologue about 'people waiting without knowing what for' was filmed during actual rush hour—commuters simply walked around Lavant, assuming he was another lost tourist.
FR
