Reviewed by Sunchica Unevska
Towards “Europa”, directed: Haider Rashid; screenplay and editing: Haider Rashid and Sonia Giannetto; roles: Adam Ali, Svetlana Yancheva, Mohamed Zouaoui; photography: Jacopo Caramella; Iraq/Kuwait/Italy 2021
Facing the “monsters” on the way to Europe
The nightmare that migrants from the so-called third country go through is not something new or unknown, but every time you face that horror again it seems shocking. Why? Because, you can’t believe that someone can be so cruel, so inhuman, so brutal, so bad towards those who try to escape from the chaos in their country and find refuge to resume their lives somewhat normally. You wonder, why would anyone prosecute them, why would anyone stop them in such an ugly way, why would anyone hunt them or hire mercenaries to disable these people in their attempts? You wonder, is it possible that this is true, is it possible for such terrible things to happen today, despite all the declarations of humanity and help to the victims, is it possible to have no sense of the other's pain, no matter where it comes from?
The film “Europa” by Italian-Iraqi director Haider Rashid, which this year is in the race for the best Arabic film, and was Iraq's nominee for an Oscar nomination, is an exceptional film, powerful, true, painful, one of those awakening works, a story that confronts you with the greatest horrors and with all the hypocrisy of today's world. In fact, everything that happens on the routes that migrants follow, it was a surprise for the director Rashid himself, who is originally from Iraq, but was born in Italy, where his father fled through the same routes in the 1970s, in the time of Saddam Hussein. And although he knows to some extend from firsthand, still, what is happening today on those routes turns into a real nightmare and in the humiliation of all that is human.
Rashid will make an incredible film with almost no dialogue, following the fate of one of the migrants, who will manage to escape on the Turkish-Bulgarian border and will roam through the Bulgarian forests for three days. While, what is happening, the behavior of all those smugglers, hunters, mercenaries who are often in agreement with the officials, about all the horror that migrants face on Balkan tours when they try to reach Europe via Turkey, says at the beginning as data, hinting that things will get worse due to the current Afghan crisis. Migrants are forced to pay much more than agreed at illegal crossings, to immediately become the target of mercenaries who don’t allow them to pass, force them to return or if they try to escape, they hunt and kill them like wild animals. In those jungles, as Rashid says, the law doesn’t exist, everything is allowed there.
In the focus of the film all the time is a young boy who in that mess, when there is a real terror in the illegal passage, will manage to escape without anyone noticing, because if they see that someone has fled then there is no end until they catch him. But he will push through somehow unnoticed, literally crawling on the ground and hiding, and then continue through those unknown wildernesses, looking for salvation and hoping to find a way out. The camera is focused on his face all the time and captures the whole event through his eyes, so we follow the film through close-ups in which his fear and uncertainty is so caught, which freezes your blood.
His journey is something impossible, you simply have nowhere to run, and you don’t even know where you are going, because the path determines only the horror from which you are trying to escape. It is even more frightening is when he sees another fugitive, whom he will try to catch. But, it will turn out that it’s better that he didn’t catch him, because the hunters knew about him and killed him before his eyes, without hesitation, literally like a wild animal. During this time he climbed as high as he could on a tree, so as not to fall into the same trap. However, you don’t know what is worse, everything around him is unknown, he doesn’t know where he is going or how long he will last, he is hungry, thirsty, with his shoes torn, the pain is unbearable, and on top of that he must be hidden from any noise. Even when you hear the fact that those people who fail to cross don’t give up, but keep trying 10 or 20 times, because they haven’t other way out. But, those borders, as one Arab critic says, are guarded by "monsters" and you don’t believe that this is Europe, a real fortress. But, how for whom!
But, he goes on, frightened, alone, lost, continues on the path of the unknown, he rejoices when he comes across to the water, to be able at least wash and drink. But, in those jungles everything is hidden, so there comes to a dead man, who also tried to cross that areas and to reach the “promised land”. As much as he feels pain and sorrow while trying to make a grave for him with leaves and branches, he takes his shoes. That, despite the justification, despite the fact that you are fighting for your life, will cause great revolt in him, so when persistent “guards”, who are constantly searching that forests, will reach to that place and will realize that there is someone who has escaped, he will dare to attack one of them and kill him. However, despite the circumstances, despite the pain and fear which totally change a person, not everyone turns into a beast. Although faced with atrocities, harassment and humiliation of the worst kind, although faced with people who don’t care about other people and treat them in the worst possible way, for this boy, taking someone else's life will become a nightmare.
But he has nowhere to go, he has to keep running, and when he gets to the right path you will hope that it is the end and that someone will help him, but even here the jungle doesn’t end, because even then he faces with terrible paranoia that generally exists towards these migrants, to whom many of the western countries close their doors. For all this is talked about in the media, but certainly not for the real events and treatment of those people, but for the threat of their presence. And even though he gets into a car, the tension is so great that he will realize that it is better to run away again. Better or necessary, these are situations in which you don’t know what is better, there is no way out, there is only hope which lasts as long as you can endure.
The film may not be a true story, but it is made according to the real journeys of these people, taking parts of their stories, from different events and situations, which is contained in the words at the beginning and at the end, which present the real data obtained from humanitarian organizations, by the refugees themselves, but also by some officials. Because the nightmare doesn’t end. Every day these people try to find a way out of hopelessness, every day they go on those death routes, although it is never known whether they will survive, although they pay big money, although they are treated terribly, but they have nowhere to go, the only thing that leads them is the hope for a better world, if not for themselves, at least for their children.
When you look at all of this today, while we are overwhelmed every day with the care of Ukrainian refugees, and while Western countries emphasize that the aid they offer is only to those who are victims of Russian aggression, but not from other war zones around the world, you wonder where the world actually went, especially the “civilized”. How is it possible to happen for such tragedies to migrants on land or at sea today, how is it possible for some people who want to live better and to find a way out of the horrors in their own countries, to be treated as inferior beings and even persecuted as animals. Aren't they ashamed...?
But, they don’t seem to be ashamed, and that this is the true face of the world we live in today, hypocrisy and (un)morality. It's completely clear to these people who have felt it on their own skin, but what they can do but try again and again. Like the nameless boy in this movie, and it doesn’t matter his name, it is important that he is a human, who continues on the path of hopelessness, who continues to hope and to see the way out of uncertainty. And the movie ends like that, we don’t know what happened to him, we don’t know what happens to any of them, because uncertainty is their constant companion, even when they seem to find a way out. The unrest and fear don’t stop, they are part of them, as long as they know that somewhere there their fellow citizens in the impasse of the invisible jungles are still looking for a way out.
Comments