Zurich Transit by Max Frisch

My dad once told me of a neighbour who placed his own obituary in the newspaper. He wanted to see who would turn up for his funeral. His family, which had not seen the obituary, was shocked when mourners started turning up at their house. The young man was asleep in his room unaware of the chaos his little experiment had caused. When the truth emerged, he was declared an oddball by the community, and kind of ostracized for the rest of his life.
"He had always been a bit eccentric," my dad said. "But that was over the top even for him."

True that his action had been extreme but the thought is something most of us could probably identify with. Would not most of us want to know what happens after death? And not just in the after life, but also after in the lives that continue. How many will show up at our funeral? Who will speak how of us and how? How will the lives around us go on?

Theo, the protagonist in Max Firsch's screenplay Zurich Transit unwittingly gets the opportunity to do exactly that. He is on a flight back from a trip abroad when he discover through the newspapers that he has been declared dead, the victim of a car accident. He lands up at his funeral planning to reveal to his wife that he is alive but holds back for some reason. He then follows his mourners to the cafe for the wake in his honour and again does not come forth, instead choosing to eavesdrop on the goings on. He walks over to the shop his mistress works in and again turns away after a glimpse from across the road. He bumps into an Italian immigrant who proclaims that his fiancée is dead and he does not have the money to return home for her funeral. Theo plays out various scenarios in his head of the reactions of his wife and others when he reveals himself. As the story progresses, Theo's discontent with his life comes through.

The writer moves the camera frequently and quickly, from following Theo to following his wife post-funeral to his mistress who think she has seen him and takes off on a wild goose chase. It goes to his workplace and also follows his mother-in-law. The screenplay displays that these shifts would be like snapshots, quick and brief...glimpses into Theo's after-death. Reading a screenplay takes getting used to. The dialogue is interspersed with descriptions of the setting, the character, his expressions and actions. The language of the descriptions is instructive in nature...notes to the director who may be filming the movie. Firsch's directions are adequate enough.

The film script of Zurich Transit emerged from Firsch's novel My Name is Gantenbein. It was to be filmed in 1965 but was canned because of creative differences between the writer and the director. It was then published as a screenplay the following year. In 1989, the rights to the screenplay were procured by director Hilde Bechert and in 1992 it was filmed. Firsch had died a year earlier. But, perhaps he sat in the shadows during the premiere, watching his film sketch on screen. Maybe he was happy with the way it turned out and walked away into the light. Or, he grimaced and squirmed through the screening, and dissatisfied, gave up and took off for a new start.