The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, April 12, 2019 — 5

I don’t typically keep a 
running Best Picture tally 
throughout the year, but I 
will be quite disappointed 
if “Transit” does not get at 
least 
a 
nomination 
in 
Feb. 
of 
2020. 
Taking 
place in modern France, 
“Transit” 
superimposes 
a Nazi occupation on a 
contemporary 
setting 
and follows the efforts 
Georg (Franz Rogowski, 
“Victoria”) 
makes 
to 
escape. “Transit” takes its 
title in part from the extra 
documents required when 
migrating internationally 
with 
stops 
in 
other 
countries. 
They 
are 
a 
coveted 
commodity 
in 
the film; it is much more 
difficult to secure transits 
than it is to secure a 
destination 
visa. 
After 
serendipitously stumbling 
upon an opportunity to 
assume a dead man’s identity, 
Georg’s shot at freedom seems 
straightforward: All he must 
obtain are transits. His journey 
is quickly complicated by a 
widow and desperate child, 
a heartbreaking love triangle 
and a woman with two dogs.
Georg’s 
epic 
journey 
is 
important. Adapted from a 
1944 novel by Anna Seghers, 
the film retains a novel-like 
narrative quality with third-
person voice over narration 
and 
intentional 
re-use 
of 
certain locations throughout. 
Director 
Christian 
Petzold 
(“Phoenix”) also wrote the 
adaptation of Seghers novel. 

Petzold’s screenplay retains 
the 
timeless 
emotions 
of 
displacement 
and 
remains 
culturally relevant despite the 
anachronistic 
socio-political 
setting.
“Transit” 
investigates 
freedom, and what it means 
to be faithful to oneself. I 

empathize 
wholeheartedly 
with Georg, taking shallow 
breaths while sitting on the 
edge of my seat. My heart ached 
with his profound loneliness. 
Palpable 
uncertainty 
calls 
attention to the truth, always 
hidden just out of view from the 
viewer or from the characters 
themselves. The film looks 
into the nature of “home” as 
defined 
by 
people, 
places, 
and safety. Georg’s fate is left 
to the viewer’s imagination, 
a 
poignant 
reflection 
on 
existence in a transient state.
Visually, 
cinematographer 
Hans Fromm (“Yella”) takes 
advantage of the widescreen 

format 
with 
gorgeous, 
expansive shots of pastoral 
French 
landscapes 
seen 
from a speeding train. Other 
train-shots 
are 
composed 
like a still-life painting: Two 
men in a stark white room 
accompanied only by cheese 
and paper. The tensely calm 
beauty of Marseille is 
rendered with clarity 
throughout the film, 
making 
the 
final 
moments doubly gut-
wrenching.
“Transit” 
reminds 
us 
the 
costs 
of 
compassion, 
the 
double-edged 
sword 
of shameful silence, 
and 
the 
existential 
weight of solitude. One 
particularly 
literary 
line, “ports are places 
where 
stories 
are 
told,” offers a neat 
summary of the film 
and 
its 
characters. 
“Transit” sees people 
converging in unlikely 
circumstances; 
each 
day some stories are told as 
other stories are being written.
While I haven’t read Segher’s 
novel, 
“Transit” 
retains 
a 
literary quality and cadence. 
Embracing 
film’s 
unique 
beauties without abandoning 
literature’s 
nuanced 
sentimentality, Petzold holds 
onto the gentleness. Opening 
the door for political questions 
and rumination on identity 
and the concept of home, 
the instant classic does not 
sacrifice immediacy. I intend 
to read the original book soon, 
and I’ll certainly be adding 
“Transit” to my repertoire of 
favorites.

Faithful ‘Transit’ is stellar

FILM REVIEW

ROSS ORGIEFSKY
Daily Arts Writer

Transit

Michigan Theater

Schramm Film

Between 
adolescence 
and 
adulthood, 
there’s 
a 
hazy, 
underappreciated threshold. Your early twenties are fast and 
ruthless, messy as your fight for control ends in the merciless 
reality of independence. Friendships end, love is lost and you fail 
to recognize yourself as the people you surround yourself with 
change. A sense of respite only creeps up in bursts of confidence 
and assurance during this period of fear, unconventionality and 
uncertainty as your identity prevails in all the ways you wouldn’t 
expect it to.
This is the story of Khalid’s career. His success with debut 
album American Teen won over pop culture when he had barely 
graduated high school. In his lovely, leathery voice, he 
conveyed the trials and triumphs of high school without 
sparing a single detail. From tales of booze-infused 
nights that went too far to heartaches that went too 
deep, his songs reached fans with and without driver’s 
licenses alike. It was an album that fit a distinct, special 
experience but was contained within a specific period 
of time — references to cell phone pictures, car ride 
apps and GPS navigation painted the scene that enabled 
or crushed the connections Khalid made with other 
people. It was a loneliness that only made sense if it was 
a loneliness that you experienced, and this specificity 
made it such a hallmark to teen music.

It’s been two years since, and our American teen has grown. 
His life has extended beyond the membrane of a high school 
existence into one of fame and independence. This proved to 
influence his sophomore album Free Spirit, as it echoes the 
sentiment that the teenage struggle of finding yourself never 
truly ends, regardless of a contextual shift into early adulthood. 
He puts it simply in an interview with Billboard saying, “this 
album is the culmination of all of the growth and experiences I 
have gathered over the past two remarkable years.”
In Free Spirit, these stories are carried by ’80s synths and 
sticky, euphoric grooves. It’s a background you can move 
to, but with a lot more variety this time around; the sound is 
effortlessly R&B with glimmers of classic rock and a surprisingly 
gorgeous guest appearance by John Mayer on guitar. The raw 
elements that made American Teen so memorable remain in tact, 

though they’ve matured. Rather than bemoaning the end of a 
relationship, he reflects on the nature of its failure in title track 
“Free Spirit,” crooning, “I’ve been lovin’ more, livin’ less / Off of 
highs and lows, so obsessed / Couldn’t get nothing / But we’re 
never runnin’ out.” Through these lines he marks his growth, 
eschewing any trepidation of judgement for his experiences. 
Similarly, Khalid explores aspects of early adulthood in 
themes we gloss over. With the image of party culture so 
ingrained in the college-aged experience, we neglect the 
vulnerability and escapism that accompany it. Khalid follows 
just this in “Paradise,” as he details getting high to cope with 
not “liking watchin’ your mama cry / You say you’d rather die / 
She says you’re wastin’ your life.” It’s anxiety-inducing, fearful 
and a bit nihilistic, but he follows this immediately with hopeful 
proclamations in “Hundred.” He explores the theme in every 
sense from having “a hundred friends,” experiencing 
a feeling for “a hundred days” and having “a hundred 
things to do,” but ensures us that it is all worth it when 
you keep it “a hundred” and “dust yourself off.” Other 
highlights include “Twenty One,” a song that’s exactly 
what you’d expect it to be about, and the funky love 
anthem “Outta my Head,” featuring the addictive bass 
stylings of John Mayer.
Overall, Free Spirit proves to be the perfect, timeless 
backdrop to early twenties and the slew of emotions 
that accompany it. In unwavering confidence, Khalid 
deftly conveys the insecurity and uncertainty that goes 
into discovering yourself and trusting your gut.

Khalid’s ‘Free Spirit’ marks his artistic maturity

ALBUM REVIEW

DIANA YASSIN
Daily Arts Writer

Art has shown time and 
time again that it cannot 
only serve as a voice to the 
speechless, but also as a form 
of healing for the broken. The 
Sexual 
Assault 
Prevention 
and 
Awareness 
Center 
(SAPAC) 
recognizes 
this, 
and 
through 
their 
event, 
“rEVOLUTION: 
Making Art for 
Change,” 
they 
hope to not only 
bring 
attention 
to local artists, 
but 
also 
show 
the 
power 
and 
effectiveness 
of 
art of all mediums.
Hosted 
by 
SAPAC’s Survivor 
Empowerment 
and Ally Support 
(SEAS) 
team, 
“rEVOLUTION” 
is an annual event 
hosted in Rackham Graduate 
School that showcases the 
artwork of both survivors 
and allies in the community. 
The 
artwork 
represents 
a 
variety of subject matters. In 
an interview with The Daily, 
LSA junior Jessica Hobbs and 
LSA sophomore Matt Weiner 
talked about their experience 
organizing the event. Founded 
in 2006, the event focuses on 
promoting “art as a healing 
process and sharing the stories 
of survivors in a way that’s 
more digestible and even more 
intense 
emotionally,” 
said 
Hobbs, the organizer of this 

year’s “rEV.”
The event showcases a range 
of artistic styles and pieces, 
from 
three-dimensional 
hanging pieces, visual art of 
all shapes and sizes, a few 
poetry pieces, dance, audio-
video presentations and much 
more. “It’s structure mostly 
like a gallery event, but we do 

have a mini-schedule for the 
films and dance presentation,” 
Hobbs said.
The event has around forty 
different pieces on display, 
which Weiner says is “enough 
to show, but not too many as 
to be overwhelming. We want 
everyone to be able to see 
everything.”
The 
pieces 
touch 
on 
a 
variety of subject matters — 
some lighthearted, and some 
extremely personal — and the 
gallery welcomes that. They 
aim to create an environment 
for all types of art. Weiner 
discussed 
the 
selection 

process, commenting on how 
“There aren’t any specific 
requirements (for an art piece), 
per say … we’re just hoping to 
allow artists to have a space 
(for their art) to grow and heal 
from their experiences rather 
than make arguments.”
The two emphasized the 
importance of the role of art in 
the organization, 
and 
why 
they 
believe expression 
through art can 
be 
an 
integral 
component 
in 
healing 
and 
empowering 
survivors. 
“It’s 
a 
really 
easy 
way 
for 
people 
to connect with 
something 
that 
isn’t 
necessarily 
a news headline 
of 
a 
political 
topic. Using art 
as 
a 
medium 
allows people to 
interface 
with 
their 
emotions 
more 
readily 
than, say, interacting with a 
headline,” Hobbs stated.
And more so, the experience 
can be just as important for 
the observer as well as the 
artist. Weiner discussed how, 
“It’s a two-fold experience. 
It can be hard to verbalize 
exactly what you’re thinking 
on the artist’s side, however 
on the viewer’s side, the art 
can be very approachable and 
digestible.” Gallery-goers may 
resonate with a piece of visual 
art and relate to the emotions 
conveyed through it more so 
than they would have with, 
say, a piece of poetry.

SAPAC survivor showcase

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

RYAN COX
Daily Arts Writer

rEVOLUTION: Making 
Art for Change

Apr. 14 @ 2-6 p.m.

Rackham Graduate School

Free

Darlingside has always been a bright spot on the face of modern folk 
music. Starting out as a five-piece rock band out of Boston, Mass., the 
group narrowed down to four members and grew their sound into the 
stunning mix of influences and instrumentation that we hear today. 
Composed of multi-instrumentalists Auyon Mukharji, Don Mitchell, 
Dave Senft and Harris Paseltiner, the band has found a niche in the 
folk music scene, although their work covers a broad array of musical 
references and motifs. From their first studio record Pilot Machines, 
released in 2012, the group has never been easy to pin down, and this 
is the magic of their approach. They traverse sounds that stem from 
traditional folk to electronic experimentation with ease, building 
a colorful base from which they spin complex stories. Now touring 
their 2018 album Extralife and a recently-released EP, Darlingside 
has leaned into their multifaceted sound to create something new for 
the future.
Extralife itself is a magnum opus for the group, a response both to 
the times we live in and the realities of Trump-era America through 
an ornate lens. Yet, making a pseudo-protest album was not always the 
intention of Darlingside during the writing and recording process. I 
spoke to band member Auyon Mukharji about this process and much 
more in an interview this month, ahead of their performance this 
weekend at Ann Arbor’s historic folk venue The Ark. “We don’t do a 
lot of sort of like meta, big picture planning before we write a record,” 
Mukharji explained in a phone call with The Daily, “It’s more of a 
brain dump … for Extralife, at least, how we kind of evolved was to 
everyone getting in on ground level.”
“A person might come in with a lyric, or with a tune, and then 
everyone would have their favorite parts and work on them a little bit 

and then it would be all ripped apart as a group,” Mukharji elaborated, 
“It’s a very iterative process, so what we end up coming up with 
versus the end drafts of those lyrics is the result of our headspace.” 
On the origins of the album, the violinist explained that they came 
from many places, some harder to divine than others: “We come 
from a relatively similar place, we are very close friends and we’ve 

lived out a van for so many years together,” Mukharji said. “There 
are conversations we have, and concerns, and a lot of this was in the 
lead-up to the 2016 election, so we didn’t have a sort of overarching 
idea of what we wanted the record to be more than (the fact that) this 
is what came out of our heads.”
In addition to Extralife, Darlingside released a new EP in February 
titled Look Up and Fly Away, a combination of songs leftover from 
the album’s writing process and some that had been around for 
a while. Either way, the collection of six songs has a significantly 
more uplifting tone than Extralife, serving as the yin to its yang in 

a complementary duo. “Our record-writing process, in the gross 
inefficiency of it, is that we start with 30 or so song ideas that we 
have to whittle down to 12,” Mukharji laughed. “Then we do a little 
bit of recording of all of them and then we’ll cut it down to 25,” he 
continued, “then they’re around half-finished, so we end up with 
bits and pieces of, kind of Frankensteined songs that are in different 
levels of disrepair.”
But this doesn’t mean that everything included on the EP was 
necessarily from Extralife, or that any song has a truly cemented 
beginning in time. “So the first song ideas, some of the freshest 
musical ideas, well some of the songs that made it on Extralife the 
album had been kicking around for about a decade, from a while 
back, some of them were ideas that came to us during the writing 
process,” Mukharji explained. “So the (songs on the) EP are from a 
similar variety, right, they’re a mix and match of different things that 
we ended up playing with.”
“In the wake of press stuff and Spotify, we need to have a steadier 
stream of music, and so not limiting ourselves to a full-length album 
is something that we’re (used to),” he continued. “We enjoyed that 
process with the last album we put out, after we released (our 2015 
album) Birds Say, then we put out an EP called Whippoorwill, and it 
went great, so we thought we’d try the same trick!” This approach has 
worked well for Darlingside: In addition to providing more material 
for excited fans, they are able to integrate new music into their tour 
as they plan each performance. It’s a process that starts with the 
highly-produced music they create in the studio and boils down to 
a poignantly bare setup of the four around a microphone, weaving 
together their respective voices and instruments in a sea of sound.

Darlingside on process, performance and folk magic

MUSIC INTERVIEW

CLARA SCOTT
Senior Arts Editor

Darlingside with Molly 
Parden

Apr. 14 @ 7:30 p.m.

The Ark

$22

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Free Spirit

Khalid

RCA Records