It risks spoilers to reveal that Mahdi Fleifel’s powerful – and morally brave – tale of Palestinian refugees adrift in Athens owes an unmistakable debt to Midnight Cowboy.
Two rootless oddballs ramble about the city doing what is necessary, including the odd turning of tricks in the park, to keep their head above water. As in John Schlesinger’s picture, we are invited to sympathise, even when the characters step away from bourgeois norms.
There is no attempt to make sport of their occasional banditry. Nor is there any finger wagging. Just an acceptance that humans are victims of their circumstances.
We first meet Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah) hanging – “lurking” might be fair here – in the park, where they happen upon a woman whose purse, using a tried-and-tested ruse, they steal, only to find just a few euro within.
Bridget Jones fans go mad about the movie in Dublin: ‘We’ve been told inside to bring tissues, that we’ll be crying and laughing’
Captain America: Brave New World review – Not even Harrison Ford’s last-ditch Red Hulk can rescue this cheap, garish mess
To a Land Unknown review: This uncomfortable film about Palestinian refugees adrift in Athens sweeps you along in its momentum
Memoir of a Snail review: A lovely, heartfelt creation from an Oscar-winning animator
It transpires that, unable to work and with no legitimate access to other sources of income, the two men are trying to finance a trip to Germany, where they plan to set up a cafe. One thinks of Ratso’s yearning to get to Florida in Midnight Cowboy. Reda is addicted to heroin and takes money from cruisers in the park to finance the habit. Chatila is that little bit more focused in his thinking.
If Fleifel’s film were to continue too far down this brutal route it could risk nihilism. Happily, he allows his characters to back away from their own concerns for a moment (not an easy thing to do) when they encounter a young teenager called Malik (Mohammad Alsurafa), also Palestinian, who is seeking to join his aunt in Italy.
They ask a dissolute acquaintance to pose as the boy’s mother and ponder ways to get both on to a plane. Meanwhile, they hatch an even more absurd scheme to swindle cash from three Syrian refugees.
To a Land Unknown, a hit at Cannes last year, profits from being shot on the sly in and about the breathing, dusty streets of the Greek capital. Thodoris Mihopoulos’s pitted 16mm photography offers another link to the decayed New York depicted in Midnight Cowboy.
Most praise must, however, go to the two actors, who invite great empathy for characters too often forced into desperate decisions. This is an uncomfortable film, but one that sweeps you along in its momentum.
In cinemas from Friday, February 14th
