Review | Der Trafikant

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A 17-year-old named Franz (Simon Morzé) starts working as an apprentice in a tobacco shop where Sigmund Freud (Bruno Ganz) is a frequent customer. After a while, the two establish a strong friendship. Once, the young man falls in love with a girl, Anezka (Emma Drogunova), and begins to ask for love advice from Freud who, although he is a renowned psychoanalyst, confirms that, even for him, the feminine mysteries have great potency. In the midst of serious political tension in Austria and the rise of Nazism, the three characters find themselves in the dilemma between leaving the country or staying in it.

Crítica | A Tabacaria 1
Tobacconist is one of the best films to tell about the thoughts of a Nation that is divided between “being right” only with hate and leaving reason aside.

This is a film that will be far from the spotlight of the big “specialized” media because it is more in the documentary style. Which is a shame, because long films with such a strong historical theme remembering what a Pre-War country is and the thoughts of a Nation in thinking that the Nazi political and “libertarian” philosophy was the correct one, demonstrates how flawed we are still when we exchange reason for feelings.

The Tobacconist is a simple film, where we are the young Franz, leaving a small and peaceful village for a big city with smells that make him dizzy and nauseating noises. There in Vienna, through his eyes and thoughts, we grew up with the character who is learning the hard way that the human being is much more than a simple life, and that he can change trends, like changing clothes.

The drama shows a poor country like Austria after the 1st and almost 2nd World War, where all the country's problems would be solved simply by blaming the Jews, Communists and whoever had a more critical thinking who would be called subversives. As in these days, either you were for one side or you were for the other. There was no room for a third or fourth thought. Party imposition, no matter how much, like spraying the blood of animals on the facade of an establishment or simply denouncing people for their religion or social position, was normal.

And here's the sad thing about a movie of this style not being in the big rooms and in the media as a great suggestion for the weekend.

Through Franz we get to know all of this stunning and terrifying Vienna. We know one of the great names in history, Sigmund Freud, and the first steps to not understanding our thoughts and body when we come across the beautiful Anezka.

Crítica | A Tabacaria 2
For the young Franz, love, passion, attraction, among many other names, are totally new feelings that are impossible to control. As it is, for so many others.

Here, the vision of a boy turning into a man is remarkable. It's easy to call a 17-year-old a boy just because he's naive and asks questions. But when he stops doing them, he is an insensitive person who has never thought about what the opposite sex really wants.

Franz has all the doubts of his age. He cannot understand the differences between love and libido for Anezka, as there are so many other pleasures in the world. For this reason, he questions more and more, but because he doesn't find answers, he gets madder and madder in not understanding himself.

Like The Tobacconist, where he learns from Oto about the thoughts and tastes of his customers, Franz is a small world where people come and go, leaving imaginings of who they are, until they turn into very real nightmares.

Unfortunately, The Tobacconist is lost in two important parts, which are in relation to Freud and the location that is the title of the drama.

Freud turns out to be just a character who is a friend of the young Franz, but who could well have been anyone else. There is a lack of a narrative with images of this important psychoanalyst, where the direction could have given a role to explain not only to Franz, but also to the spectator, the thoughts/analysis of human thoughts. Not their answers, but helping us to question ourselves as human beings in this strange, enigmatic and at the same time spectacular universe. Freud ends up being just any character in the film, with some points where he dialogues with Franz, but he never helps him grow as a human being, let alone leaving questions.

Crítica | A Tabacaria 3
Unfortunately Freud is just a secondary character who could have been anyone else, like a “grandfather” giving advice.

Some points are even interesting, such as arguments and a part in which he gives “3 remedies” to the young man. It's one of the rare opportunities where we can really put ourselves inside the story and lie down on its couch.

The other negative part is for Tobacconist. From the title, the place should be a character within the story. A place for historical viewing and discussions, where people go to chat, buy products, etc. This is even shown in the beginning, where young people go to buy school supplies, a socialist goes in search of his newspaper, among other things, which Oto shows to Franz and explains how to treat each customer and what a tobacco is.

Crítica | A Tabacaria 4
The film's title location is no longer a character that transits through Vienna, to just be the film's title.

The place is no longer one of the characters and becomes just any place, which could be O Bar, A Cafeteria, among many others. It's a shame these two problems with the film.

Anyway, this does not hinder the growth of the film in any way and what it portrays to the viewer. It remains a great tool for criticizing and remembering the pre-war horrors and how poor we are in thought.

The Tobacconist takes 3 lives out of 5!

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