Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Mahdi Fleifel
Starring: Mahmood Bakri, Aram Sabbagh, Angeliki Papoulia, Mohammad Alsurafa
Films tackling the experience of refugees in Europe have mostly been
authored by filmmakers from the sort of European countries that attract
refugees. In attempting to empathise with people whose experiences they
could never really comprehend, such filmmakers tend to deliver well
intentioned yet patronising portrayals of refugees as angelic figures
victimised by various cruel and exploitative systems.
To a Land Unknown is written and directed by a former Palestinian refugee, Mahdi Fleifel (co-writing with Fyzal Boulifa and Jason McColgan), who spent a portion of his childhood in the infamous Ein
el-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon. The Palestinian refugee protagonists
of Fleifel's film are far from saintly, and the filmmaker almost goes
out of his way to make it difficult for us to sympathise with them as
their actions become increasingly cold-hearted and ruthless. It's
difficult to imagine a white western filmmaker adopting such an approach
to this topic, but Fleifel isn't interested in whether we like his
characters; he's more concerned with us understanding what motivates
their actions.
"We're bad people." So insists Reda (Aram Sabbah) when his
domineering cousin Chatila (Mahmoud Bakri) embroils him in one of
the many unscrupulous schemes hatched throughout the film's episodic
narrative. Based on their actions, it's hard to disagree with Reda's
mournful assertion. The movie opens with the pair stealing a purse from
an elderly lady, and by the final act they're torturing fellow refugees
in a desperate attempt to extract vital information.
Having fled Palestine, Reda and Chatila are stuck in the limbo of
Athens, trying to scrounge enough money to purchase fake passports.
Chatila has a pipedream of opening a café in Germany, while the
heroin-addicted Reda is happy to go along with whatever his more
together cousin thinks is best. When Reda blows their savings on a fix,
he's encouraged by Chatila to turn tricks in a local park, but the funds
for the passports seem a long way off. Then fate drops a young
Palestinian boy, Malik (Mohammad Alsurafa), in their laps. Malik
wants to join his aunt in Italy, so Chatila comes up with the idea of
acquiring the boy a fake ID and having a local alcoholic woman, Tatiana
(Yorgos Lathimos regular Angeliki Papoulia), pose as his
mother to accompany him to Italy. Upon arrival, Malik's aunt will wire
them €4000 and their problems will be over.
Of course, Chatila's hare-brained scheme doesn't go to plan, leading
him to take more ruthless action and driving a wedge in his relationship
with his cousin, who grows increasingly uncomfortable with their new
lives as criminals.
To a Land Unknown may be telling a story that you'll find playing out on the
streets of any major European city today, but it takes its narrative
cues from gritty New York dramas of the late 1960s and early '70s
like The Panic in Needle Park and Midnight Cowboy, the latter explicitly so. But Chatila and Reda aren't simply
like-for-like substitutes for Dustin Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo and Jon
Voight's Jo Buck. Reda might be a stunted junkie like Rizzo, but he's
also the one who sells his body like Buck. Chatila manipulates Reda in
the same manner as Ratso exploits Buck, but he's the sober one. These
two men are purposely complicated, and it's Fleifel's resistance to
slotting them into easily defined archetypes that makes them so
compelling. It's difficult to root for Chatila and Reda, because we're
not entirely sure of their goals, and their success seems increasingly
dependant on the exploitation of others. We want Reda to free himself
from Chatila's control, but we suspect he wouldn't last long without
him. Their dynamic is similar to that of the Dublin junkies of Lenny
Abrahamson's Adam & Paul, though there's much less black comedy here.
The 16mm photography of Thodoros Mihopoulos simultaneously creates a vibrant
immediacy while giving To a Land Unknown a timeless quality. Aside from the intrusion of cellphones, the
film looks as though it could have been shot at any time in the last 50
years, and Chatila and Reda's costumes create the impression that
they've been pulling these schemes since the '80s. The historic
background of Athens - where as Malik notes, the Acropolis can be seen
from every street corner - adds to this sense that Chatila and Reda are
trapped out of time in a limbo. As refugees their personal problems may
be immediate, but as Palestinians their wider struggle is one that spans
centuries, with no resolution in sight.
To a Land Unknown is in UK/ROI
cinemas from February 14th.
