There’s something hauntingly poetic about a film that becomes a eulogy for its creator while still feeling like a living, breathing entity. Thomas Heise’s Übergang isn’t just a documentary—it’s a ghost story told through the lens of a man who spent his life documenting the ghosts of others. As it premieres at Locarno, the film feels like a conversation between Heise’s unfinished thoughts and the world he left behind, stitched together by collaborators who now carry his voice in their bones. Personally, I think this is what makes the project so compelling: it’s not just about preserving a legacy, but about confronting the uncomfortable truth that art often outlives its maker, and sometimes, it’s the maker’s absence that gives the work its most powerful resonance.
What makes Übergang particularly fascinating is how it weaponizes the concept of transition—not just as a theme, but as a structural and emotional framework. The title, borrowed from a draft Heise wrote before his death, is a double entendre that feels almost prophetic. It’s about the physical transit of Schönhauser Allee, that chaotic Berlin crossroads, but also about the societal shifts that have defined Germany’s post-war history. And here’s the kicker: the film doesn’t shy away from tying those transitions to our current moment, where the ghosts of the past—two world wars, the collapse of ideologies, the rise of nationalism—are being drowned out by the noise of modernity. What many people don’t realize is that Heise’s work was always about this tension between memory and erasure. His films were a rebellion against the idea that history is a linear march forward, and Übergang feels like the ultimate act of defiance against that narrative.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: how do you finish a film after the director’s death? Peter Badel and Chris Wright, Heise’s longtime collaborators, had to grapple with this existential question. They didn’t just inherit a project—they inherited a philosophy. In my opinion, the most remarkable thing about their approach is how they avoided the trap of making a tribute. Instead, they treated the film as a continuation of Heise’s artistic DNA, not a museum piece. There’s a rawness to this process that’s almost poetic. Badel mentions hearing Heise’s voice in the edit, guiding them like a ghost in the machine. That’s not just a metaphor—it’s a reminder that great art is never truly finished; it lives on in the minds of those who carry it forward. What this really suggests is that Heise’s influence wasn’t just in his work, but in the way he shaped the people around him into his collaborators.
The film’s patchwork structure—combining new footage, archival material, and Heise’s own words—feels less like a puzzle and more like a mosaic. Wright’s obsession with including unseen material, like VHS tapes and diary excerpts, is a masterstroke. It’s as if they’re not just telling Heise’s story, but inviting the audience to become archaeologists of his mind. A detail that I find especially interesting is how they avoid explaining the provenance of these fragments. Instead, they let the materials converse with each other, creating a kind of cinematic dialectic. This isn’t just about nostalgia; it’s about how memory itself is a collage, a series of overlapping moments that resist a single narrative. If you take a step back and think about it, this approach mirrors the very themes Heise explored in his work—how ordinary lives are shaped by forces beyond their control, how history is written by those who survive it.
The final scene, where a homeless man at Schönhauser Allee station delivers the closing lines, is a masterclass in thematic symmetry. Heise was always drawn to the marginalized, the people society forgets to document. By giving the last word to someone who literally exists in the margins of the film’s setting, the directors are making a statement about who gets to shape the story of a nation. What this raises is a deeper question: Who decides which lives are worthy of being remembered? And more pressingly, who gets to speak for the forgotten? It’s a chilling reminder that even in a film about transitions, the most powerful moments are those that force us to confront the static nature of social hierarchies.
Ultimately, Übergang is a mirror held up to the present. Heise’s warning about the dangers of complacency—of letting the status quo calcify without question—feels more urgent than ever. In an age where historical amnesia is weaponized for political gain, this film is a call to arms. It’s not just about remembering Thomas Heise; it’s about remembering the responsibility we all share to keep questioning, to keep looking, to keep listening to the voices that society tries to silence. And if that’s not a reason to watch this film, I don’t know what is.
