Review of styx (2019) by Bertaut1 — 13 May 2019

A story about a choice between two untenable options.

Written by Wolfgang Fischer and Ika Künzel, and directed by Fischer, Styx is a film about a simple question - a group of people will die unless you intervene; what do you do? And if the answer sounds obvious, what if the question is contextualised by explaining they are African refugees trying to reach Europe illegally. Does this change anything? Should it change anything? These are the tough questions asked by Styx, a remarkably apolitical microcosm of white European indecision in regards to the current refugee crisis. It will probably frustrate those looking for something more dramatic or didactic, but for everyone else, this is an exceptionally well-mounted and brilliantly acted story about what can happen when the visor of indifference no longer shields our eyes from the truth.

Rike (Susanne Wolff) is an emergency doctor from Cologne sailing solo from Gibraltar to Ascension Island. When she encounters a damaged fishing trawler loaded with refugees, she alerts the coastguard, who promises to send help, but who warns her to stay away from the boat. Hours later, with no sign of rescue, she must make a stark choice; defy the coastguard's orders and intervene, or do nothing.

The second scene in the film shows a car crash in Cologne, which, within moments, is attended by a fleet of emergency responders, one of whom is Rike. However, the scene does more than introduce her character; here we have an almost immediate outpouring of aid for those in need, in contrast to what will happen on the ocean, where responsibility is shirked and rescue not guaranteed.

Thematically, the circumstances depicted in Styx seem tailor-made for a white saviour narrative - a privileged white European comes to the aid of a group of imperilled African refugees, deifying bureaucratic inaction, and teaching us all about the importance of compassion. Fischer, however, is not interested in such a story, and Rike is no more a hero than you or I. Indeed, she doesn't have much in the way of a character arc; once she spots the refugees, she does relatively little except watch in horror. Quite opposite to the clichéd white saviour narrative this could have become, the longer Rike does nothing, the more she comes to embody European indecision and irresponsibility, the "someone else will do something" attitude.

An important scene is when Rike contacts a nearby freighter for aid, but the radio operator tells her, "our employer has a strict policy [of non-intervention] in such cases. I can't risk my job". This introduces a further element into the narrative - economic considerations. As the car crash scene makes clear, in European cities, thousands of Euros and hundreds of people are immediately deployed to help the injured. Here on the ocean, however, when the lives of over one hundred are in danger, people bicker about economic bottom-lines. Of course, the film is named after the Styx, the river in Greek mythology that separated the human world and the Underworld, and which one may (legally) cross only if one can pay Charon, the ferryman, for passage (an obvious enough commentary on geopolitics).

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the film, however, is how quiet it is on the refugee crisis itself. Fischer is not concerned with finger-wagging pieties or didactic moralising, he's interested only in lifting the veil, letting us make up our own minds about moral questions. The crisis as a global situation is never even mentioned, nor do we ever learn where the trawler has come from or where it was going; such details are incidental. Kingsley (a young boy who swims over to Rike's yacht) is certainly a metonym for refugees in general, but he is also a terrified young boy to whom politics are irrelevant.

In terms of problems, there are a couple. To a certain extent, the disembodied voice of the coastguard is something of a token villain. The simple binary choice faced by Rike is also perhaps a little too binary. And the relationship between Rike (privileged white European) and Kingsley (suffering African refugee) is a touch over-schematised. Some will also criticise the decided lack of thrills. However, had this turned into a maritime action movie, it would have completely undermined everything it was trying to accomplish.

Styx is a film that asks difficult moral questions, without providing much in the way of answers, avoiding didacticism, and for the most part, remaining apolitical. It presents not a story about a white saviour, but a story about white indecision. With the yacht serving as a microcosm for white Europe's reaction to incoming refugees, and the attendant social, economic and political dilemmas, Fischer acknowledges that this crisis throws up exceptionally difficult questions. The answers to which are up to us as individuals and as a society.