Sometimes, people take a detour on their lives and end up going somewhere they would never want to be. That's what happened to a young boy named Chris who traveled on work to an African country and decided to stay (or so he says) to know more about it. Romantic fantasies subside when the truth about corruption and violence in African nations puts Chris in a dire situation... ... so he decides to stowaway on a boat for Marseille, a boat with a special treatment reserved for stowaways. Having slept harmless in the cargo hold for one night, before being found, everybody else on the ship thinks he knows what lies hidden in the hold, that makes strange noises and frightens the crew-members, making them disappear one by one. Is it a sea monster? A ghost seeking revenge?... The problem is: the crew knows more about it than Chris, and a sense of mistrust is visible from day one. Who's friend, who's foe? And who's more afraid of whom? Told to stay in his room, close his eyes, sleep, and ignore the strange noises at night, he decides to find out what secret hides behind a name written in the WC walls: "Rebecca". And he does. And he now knows he SHOULD NOT be alive, and survivor's guilt sets in... "Cargo" is a metaphor about live. About the way we have to live with our egocentric decisions, about the ghosts we carry and the mistakes we made in the past, and the way we deal with strangers and try to find a meaning to our lives in the experience with significant others. And, as "The Baptist" (the cook) says in the last minutes of the movie to Capt. Brookes, "It's not too late to be human again". So the Captain kills him. A very claustrophobic ambiance carries very far the sense of strangeness between the crew-members and the stowaway, and the story is told more with silence and secrets than with acts or dialog (except for the story about "Rebecca" and all the killings after that). You can almost feel the urge to demand that the crew accepts and treats fairly the poor Chris, but they are on opposite extremes of the Humankind. In the end, Chris's sacrifice redeems the entire crew that abandons the ship "Gull" for a new life on the ground, but his body will lie there, in the cargo hold, in the arms of Capt. Brookes, determined to go down with the ship to atone for his sins. Though simple, it is a nice movie to see in late night sessions. P.S.: there are no ghosts or sea monsters on this ship, but the ones we carry inside our own hearts.

An interesting collaborative production out of Spain, staring a leading German actor, and shot in English, "Cargo" starts, continues, and finishes with a permeating sense of dread and discomfort.

Imagine the scene in "Das Boot" in which the ruddy engineer loses it, and extend that to a full-length film (adding some mysterious sounds and disappearances of characters) and you get the general feeling.

For all its beautiful, gritty imagery, the story leaves some significant questions unanswered. That's not necessarily bad in a film. For example, a question like "Does the captain's ominous drawing of the beautiful parrot turned demon actually mean something literal, or metaphoric?" leaves you with something to think about and discuss.

But, other questions (Why and how are the sailors disappearing? Are they being killed or jumping ship from guilt? How exactly does the boy drown when the other thrown-over passenger seems to come out just fine?) leave you wondering if the script was badly cut, the film badly edited, or were bad direction or budgetary restrictions to blame. While glad to have seen it, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to a friend, unless they are a thriller or mystery fanatic.

This is a delight. I have seldom seen so much achieved with so little. What a crew! What accents! This reminds me of the Bill Hicks sketch where he recalls that Brits seldom have more than a soccer ball to threaten people with.

This German kid makes the big mistake of going to Africa outside of a World Cup event. Next the mistake of running out of funds. Falling foul of the militia. Losing his passport. And then the chance to get back to Europe on a cargo ship.

We, who like films, are always looking for little gems that slip through the Net. They are not put together by committee. They are not put together on someone's PC. Things don't blow up every five minutes. The hero does not dodge all the bullets sent his way.

One of the best captains I have seen.