In the gripping drama Styx, Rieke (Susanne Wolff) is a woman who intends to pilot her sailboat on a solo voyage from Europe to Ascension Island off the coast of Africa. That’s one woman, all alone on her boat for 3,000 miles of open ocean.
Oozing matter of fact confidence, Rieke seems well-equipped for the adventure. She is fit, highly skilled, an experienced sailor and provisioned up with top quality gear and supplies. Rieke’s day job is as an emergency physician, and we see that no crisis situation seems to faze her.
In the first part of Styx, we think we’re watching a survival tale – woman against nature. But when a dramatic storm hits, we’re afraid for her but she’s not.
After the storm, she faces the first situation that she can’t handle on her own – one of life-and-death that has been spawned by a humanitarian crisis bigger than any individual. Frustratingly, she knows exactly what must be done, but she can’t do it herself; instead, she must rely on civilized nations behaving according to expected norms. But are those expected norms available to everyone? And will everyone act as they should?
Rieke’s persona is based on acting to solve every problem. But here, there are no good choices.
This is a German film about a German character, but almost all the dialogue is in English, the international language of navigation.
The second feature for director Wolfgang Fischer, Styx has won film festival awards, including at the Berlin International Film Festival. Styx can be streamed from Amazon, AppleTV and Vudu.