QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM TAL:LINN

In Wolfgang Petersen’s classic Das Boot (1981), two sailors discuss the effects sealife has on its crew. “They’ll have grown beards by then,” one notes, suggesting that this grand ocean quickens man’s ageing process. Although a very different creature, Freight also notes the accelerated process of ageing on a ship lost at sea. Recorded over four years, Max Carlo Kohal’s camera crew notes the development of a teenage crew, peering at their intellectual and physical growth as he does so.

A deeply immersive picture, Freight is heavily dependent on the sound design, positing viewers between the creaks, groans and echoes that ring across the ship. Much could be written about the scope of the documentary, but Kohal’s focus is primarily on the people working aboard the vessel. “You forget all your other worries,” one reveals to the camera, discussing the marine life that awaits them. Voices disappear into one another, making an ensemble of noise in the shape of a team; the whole is much greater than the individual.

The sound design is impressive. A hammering effect quickly envelopes into something grander, embodying the ship as a whole. The audience sees a cabin worker tying a rope around a block, eyes focused on the task at hand. Apropos to age, the inhabitants jibe at each other over eating habits (“I’m just eating slowly”), paying close attention to the European ports ahead of them. For all the cavernous soundscapes, there are softer set-pieces that go on for a steady length of time. At those times, the camera’s attention is on the landscape: lyrical, longwinding and buried in greenery.

Freight’s dissertation is adolescent uncertainty. In that regard, it’s a universal feature, one that every viewer can identify with. Stationed at Rotterdam, the adolescents can be found working on hoses, building a rapport that can only stem from a situation like this. Impressively for people so young (none of them can be more than 20), they keep a level head for this particular exercise. “They’re colleagues,” a voice reveals;”but they feel like friends.” And then it’s followed with the most aphoristic quote from the documentary: “And the longer you’re on the ship, the more you learn about the people themselves.”

Human in description, personal in approach, the general feeling of the crew is of mutual respect. Schematically speaking, Freight also holds an invigorating colour palette: sepia blue paints, splashed across the ship, differ from the more marinesque colours of the ocean. Kohal cuts between person and landscape, a melange of colours, contradictions and voices meshed into one kaleidoscopic whole.

Their perceptions of life are tipped on their head. “At the back we’re closer than at the front,” they cry, which sounds like something out of a 19th century novel. Spirits waver, but never break: these people are as strong as the sea they sail.Their observations grow more profound the longer the spend on top of this vehicle. By the time the credits end, each could put their thoughts to pen.

“I knew for a long time,” one admits to their teammate about the future they are set to sail down. Bandied together on one ship, they have conquered several different tides, and seem able to take on the tribulations on land. Every person must journey their own odyssey, but these adolescents take it one further and take their misgivings to the sea. Freight, like The Odyssey and Das Boot, is superficially about ocean, but truthfully it’s about the people courageous enough to tackle it.

Freight just premiered in the brand new Doc@PÖFF section of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.