On Franz Rogowski

At the end of Ira Sachs’ 2023 film Passages, the protagonist, Tomas, played by the German actor Franz Rogowski, endures two brutal, entirely deserved rejections by both his soon-to-be-ex-husband, Martin, and his estranged lover, Agathe. Bereft, on his knees, wearing a ridiculous outfit, he is hunched and suffering in the hallway of the grade school where Agathe works — he has interrupted her class to make his doomed entreaty – when a brusque employee shoos him away. His response is to get on his beat-up vintage racing bike and go. The final shots of the film show Tomas riding, skillfully but recklessly, with the energetic physical control Rogowski brings to pretty much every part he plays, through the streets and sidewalks of Paris. Maybe there are tears glistening in his eyes, but he is also free.