Disobedience (2017), dir. Sebastián Lelio

My perspective on this film can only be limited – a gentile perspective – and I don’t claim to know everything about what this film represents for the Jewish community, or even what it means for lesbian women. That being said, the binary expectations, patriarchy, assumed heterosexuality and male/female reproduction within Hasidic Judaism as depicted within this film is gross to say the least: disempowering, a cage, lacking economic independence. It’s easy to see, especially in a situation in the UK where cis, binary, monogamous homosexuality seems to have a degree of greater acceptance (within heterosexual terms) that these confines don’t still exist. Homophobia is otherised: Israeli films like Eyes Wide Open (2009) and In Between (2016) depict the level of homophobia and ‘behind closed doors’ nature of Jewish communities in Jerusalem and Muslim communities in Tel Aviv, confrontational to Israel but foreign to a UK audience. Five decades on on from the underground relationships of films like Victim (1961), it’s easy to get a cute queer romcom with homophobia barely addressed, or on the other end of the spectrum, ‘bury your gays’ level of melodrama. But it’s helpful to be reminded that these barriers still exist: queer history and existence is still erased. It’s still taboo, against the norm, stereotyped, lesbian sexuality received through the male gaze as masturbation material, gross and an easy joke, not something to aim for. Faith communities, and people from different cultural backgrounds – despite the number of accepting, loving and queer people of different faiths and cultures that I’m friends with – have longstanding world views, whether in Eastern Europe or India or Russia or the Middle East – that cannot be erased, even when adapted into British culture, with too many existing institutional structures and shared beliefs to retreat easily.

There’s something sweet and depressing to this film – a teenage romance, where ‘experimentation’ is just a phase – attraction, desire, kissing in the park – that cannot last. And the reunion, years later, where everything and nothing has changed. This film dug up something important to me: what those first, queer kisses really are like, rejecting every homophobe that bullied you in high school, the memories of which still linger as moments of something special. Saying “fuck it” to society and straight couples and every parental suggestion.

Lelio even touches on the false idea of escape: move to New York, and the chemistry will continue, there will be no barriers from anybody. But it’s a false dream – without a visa or money for plane travel – that can never truly be achieved, no matter how much we want it to: a plot device deployed by soppy romantic comedies with a ‘happy ever after’. There’s a degree of acceptance that grows, but the final speech isn’t so much about queerness (though it is about the ability to disobey and the notion of free will) than a shift. The confines that tell women not to speak out – don’t confront patriarchy, don’t argue with the erasure of maiden names from a family’s history, don’t go outside a particular type of girl with a particular man with mediocre sex on the same day every week, the Torah, its surrounding interpretations and the community of Jews around it – as a way to survive. Don’t argue with bringing life into this world and raise a baby within heterosexual confines. These cannot be confronted overnight, but they can still be fought in small, interpersonal ways.

The freedom of escape is a thing of beauty – kissing intensely, taking a Tube into central London, holding hands, feeling the power of good, saliva mixing, wet fucking, hotel room love and embrace and passion and adoration and sex. But there must always be a home and a bed to return to. The film begins with absent chemistry, and bad, lame, tedious, boring sex scenes – before Lelio reveals their history and the true nature of things – the reasons behind resistance and the lack of mutual affection. It blossoms. Paranoia lingers: what happens if their queerness becomes known? The response to queer sexuality is not to embrace it, but bury it inside a loveless marriage, with no pesky hot queer women too busy having lame toilet sex with men on the other side of the globe to interfere. Removing a woman from the community is easier than dealing with these issues. 

With the power of the film’s leads, this film easily becomes a ‘woman’s picture’ a la the 1940s and 50s, a male director dealing with patriarchal structures through the words upon the screenplay’s page. Though adapted from Naomi Alderman’s novel, Chilean-Argentine director Lelio isn’t approaching the film as Jewish or British or a woman, and one wonders, with the number of capable Jewish female directors out there, why the film isn’t exempt from the patriarchal structures of filmmaking. But we know why: with A Fantastic Woman, Gloria (2013) and it’s Americanised remake, Gloria Bell (2018), Lelio has been somewhat pigeonholed as a director who can achieve strong performances out of strong, atypical women outside of the norm.

The Other Side of Hope (2017), dir. Aki Kaurismäki

The Refugee Crisis is one of the most divided issues of the present, a schism between right and left questioning immigration, borders and national identity, encapsulating fears of job security and terrorism. Amid recent events, from blocked travel bans from Muslim majority countries to terrorist attacks throughout the UK and Europe, these questions aren’t going away. Aki Kaurismäki is a singular voice in Finnish cinema, gaining international distribution and recognition where others fail. His style is distinctive, producing the most compelling film about the Refugee Crisis to date by blurring the lines of comedy.

Refugee Crisis cinema has largely been documentary: Fire at Sea (2016) evokes the neorealism of post-war Italian cinema, witnessing the arrival of refugees and national reaction. Series like Exodus: Our Journey to Europe follow refugees first-hand attempting to cross the Mediterranean and settle in Britain, shot with hidden cameras; online media like VICE provide in-depth coverage of what refugees go through. Béla Tarr responded through his exhibition Till the End of the World (2017) at the EYE Filmmuseum, combining photojournalism, multimedia elements and film sequences from his films, closing the distance between post-war migration and the present day. Amid political tensions, journalistic pieces like Welcome to Weimar offer our closest idea to what it means to be a refugee.

Kaurismäki immediately confronts us with the ridiculous: Khaled (Sherwan Haji) appears at port on a coal freighter, covered in black. His eyes peer out, wandering around the ship, noticing the captain in his own world, watching a puppet show on an old TV. Speaking to David Jenkins in Little White Lies #70, Kaurismäki cited the influence of Michael Powell. Powell’s WWII cinema touched upon the notion of the immigrant: in 49^th Parallel (1941), Nazi sailors arriving in Newfoundland confront an agrarian Canada built by immigrants, otherised as outsiders. Arriving in Helsinki, Khaled asks for directions, without phone. Bathing in a public shower, combing his hair in a mirror, Khaled becomes one of us, dressed in crosshatched shirt; there is no distance. As Kaurismäki reflects:

In my young days everybody left Finland. One million went to the United States, one million went to Sweden and one-and-a-half million went to Australia. And this is what I’m thinking now. So when all us economical roaches are everywhere, how come we are so impolite now?

Whereas many documentaries and articles focus upon the journey, The Other Side of Hope is interested in arrival, integrating into European culture not at war but at peace. Rather than an abstract mass of refugees or statistics, Kaurismäki focuses upon a constructed personality embodying the crisis. Kaurismäki spent three months researching “every bloody article on the subject”, casting refugees he could not legally credit within the film.

Khaled’s journey is related through exposition, talking about being attacked by neo-Nazis in Gdansk as he hid in a ship bound for Helsinki. Khaled’s narrative is cyclical, a constant target of racism. Khaled escapes deportation, the dream of a refugee, hiding in a shower and breaking the back window, but he cannot escape discrimination. Called a “camel driver”, attacked at the bus stop; drenched in lighter fluid by thuggish far-righters at a bar; stabbed by one of the group in a car park, implausibly surviving. Kaurismäki avoids music, creating a minimalistic approach, never emotionalising events but allowing us to accept them as they are, without partisan bias: the refugee crisis is accepted as reality, without manipulation.

Khaled makes a case for his right to stay amid bureaucracy, kept in a cell by initially welcoming police; describe his experiences and elicit sympathy, every word recorded by tape. In trial, overshadowed by the EU and Finnish flag, Khaled is ordered repatriated, flown to Damascus and transported to Aleppo, told in emotionless tone his home is not dangerous. An unending routine: the judge swiftly orders the next refugee be brought in, likely to receive equal fate. We cut to a group of refugees in the Reception Centre, watching war-torn images on TV: hospitals destroyed, many people dead. Khaled is told home is safe, yet must return to this.

Khaled is kept at a Reception Centre, unable to sleep, embodying silence and emptiness. Identity becomes reduced to objects, lacking home and family: reading books or playing instruments in military-esque beds, little to pass time but a constant stream of cigarettes. Khaled lacks a mobile: a stretch, as mobiles are essential tools for refugees, coordinating with contacts and organising their transportation and arrival. Befriending Iraqi Mazdak (Simon Hussein Al-Bazoon), differences forgiven, allows him use of his ancient brick of a mobile. Security has dissipated to constant instability. Khaled no longer a mechanic; Mazdak no longer a nurse. Mazdak cleans the metro for two months, spending most of the past year out of work, unable to allow his family to stay.

Finland’s dream becomes detached from reality: Khaled feels constant longing, wanting to be reunited with sister Miriam (Niroz Haji). Leaving Helsinki becomes just as difficult as arriving. Kaurismäki interrupts the film with street performers and country and blues music at the bar, as Khaled sits reflecting. As old music legends sing of the Lord and the land, we sense Khaled’s longing for his own land, Syria, in spite of hardship. Kaurismäki reminds us of the complexity of the crisis: the Reception Centre is diverse, refugees from Africa, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, some women in hijabs, others without, culture away from home. Asked of denomination in his interview, Khaled speaks of burying the prophet, but denies having no religion. Khaled relinquishes religious precepts, drinking beers with Mazdak, even as Mazdak dismisses an entire city of “nonbelievers”, attempting to integrate into secular culture.

Kaurismäki contrasts Khaled’s journey with shirt salesman Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen), following each move of a poker game gripped to our seats, winning a wad of euros; acquiring a restaurant, the Golden Pint, drawn from Kaurismäki’s own experience running Zetor in Helsinki. The Golden Pint is a joke, without any kitchen hygiene, serving plates of tinned sardines and potatoes. Wikström benefits from capitalism where Khaled cannot survive; refugee survival becomes defined by economic capability, only affording travel through life savings. As Robert F. Worth writes in The New York Times, the “constant pressure of war” in Syria has “left almost no room for a real economy”, its industrial centres decimated.

Khaled tries to find respite sleeping outside the Golden Pint, but finds compassion and manipulation in Wikström, giving Khaled under the radar work, a fake ID just barely concealing his identity. As officials initiate a security check, Khaled becomes the dog in the kitchen, hiding in the bathroom as the whirr of the vacuum cleaner continues on, still plugged in. Khaled’s bedroom becomes a mattress in a closet, surrounded by supplies; Miriam is even worse off, hiding in a compartment hidden beside the exhaust of a truck.

The Golden Pint attempts to appeal to Helsinki’s minority communities, its Japanese and Indian diasporas as its identity changes through poorly placed signs. Chefs learn recipes from books, adopting Japanese robes worn within the kitchen; a decorative golden cat; sushi bathed within ice cream scoops of wasabi sauce, substituted with haddock as their supplies run out. Kaurismäki gives no explanation: Japanese residents pile in in busloads, but leave in distress. The Golden Pint becomes an Indian restaurant, attempting to make a quick buck by covering every market.

Kaurismäki places anachronisms side-by-side with present reality, interested in the visual: the Golden Pint has a jukebox, looked over by a mural to Hendrix. Wikström’s vintage car sits in a car park of modern cars. As Khaled has his photograph taken by police, a DSLR sits next to a typewriter sitting next to a laptop sitting next to an old-fashioned lamp, measuring Khaled’s height with a tape measure.

Kaurismäki’s comedy is subdued, relying upon absurdity. Where other international comedies fail to penetrate cultural and language barriers, Kaurismäki’s dependence upon silence instead favours visual humour, creating a universal language used not for irreverence but social comedy. Kaurismäki conveys character through objects: Wikström leaving his wife is told through a pair of keys on the kitchen table and her ashtray filled to the brim with cigarettes. Through cinematographer Timo Salminen and his production design, Kaurismäki embodies the same world he began in the early 80s in its visual aesthetic: its distinctive yellow font, long shots, desaturated colours, worn down buildings and concrete. Rather than appeal to a fast news cycle, Kaurismäki creates a timeless narrative that will remain relevant through the generations, without lacking in specificity.

Solaris (1972), dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

Solaris is a different beast to Andrei Rublev (1966). Rublev is steeped within the Soviet historical epic, mythologising certain values on historical figures in the tradition of Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible (1944). Yet it diverged from that tradition radically, imbued with Tarkovsky’s signature long takes and philosophy. One can draw some parallels – Tarkovsky’s close attention to small detail, with a painting of a snowy winter by a river recalling the modern day remnants of the Medieval artwork of Rublev; a picnic, shot in extreme close-up, ruined by the rain.

Its world feels like 1972, living and breathing within a world of modernist architecture. Giant, widescreen TV sets (with a Skype-esque set-up that feels familiar to 2001) are in theory modern, yet appear dated today. The widescreen serves more of a purpose than feeling futuristic, though: it matches the frame of the film itself. A scene in which the family crowd around the television set doesn’t resort to artifice through computer generated overscan lines. It’s fully immersive; it’s a window. We move from one world to the monochrome scenes of the meeting, and through another window as footage is projected to the men in the room. Yet even the lens flare feels far too J.J. Abrams to have been used in 1972.

Russia’s contributions to the Space Race can often be overlooked; released in 1972, Solaris came after the Americans had landed the first man on the moon, and in some ways, can act as a counterpart to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). More than 20 years before the ISS became a reality, the concept of a space station itself feels modern, devoid of the incredible journey of travelling to the moon (or beyond). Travelling to space is no longer fantastical, but it’s been adapted to; it’s just another part of everyday life. There are no scenes of any intensive training programme. No impressive lift-off. Tim Peake receives massive TV and social media coverage as a national hero, yet there is no celebration of Russia’s heroes here.

On the outside, the bland white walls of the space station are run-of-the-mill. Yet the internal life reveals a different story. Tarkovsky concerns himself with individuality – what sets one man apart from a couple of other billion people. One man across a lonely ocean; one man in a lonely universe; one man living in his own house as its own island. Space is a frontier for us where we can scarcely comprehend the knowledge we are bombarded with within the vastness; the same goes for outer space. It might as well be a nautical voyage – more often than not, the rooms in the space station feel like cabins in a ship.

A facade of home is rebuilt in space: a wood panelled library, covered with ancient books. Bedrooms seep with personality – Renaissance art, ceramic heads and so on. Even the very conceit of suicide in space feels like a noir murder mystery, not a philosophical sci-fi film. Or the idea of having a body transported home to Earth, dismissed as preposterous, is a concern at home, transporting a body from the deceased’s lived city to their hometown. The facade is confronted when we see an illusion of the house we were introduced to in the beginning of the film – the house, the real but constructed place that defines our identity.

Hari is herself a manifestation of memory. She is but a hollow shell of a past, learning how to be human from Kris, with the express intention of pleasing Kris. It has an interesting modern analogue, through explorations of AIs in Ex Machina (2014) and Jonathan Luna’s comic series Alex + Ada (2013-15). The internet, as a graveyard of inactive profiles, changes this concept of resurrection. Such as the late David Carr’s Twitter profile a few months ago, which was hacked by a ‘sexbot’, leading to upset amongst his followers until it could be restored. Or the much publicised breach of the Canadian dating site Ashely Madison’s personal information last year: a thoroughly interesting analysis by Gizmodo found that the site relied upon bots feeding off the data of inactive profiles, becoming in effect self-cannibalising. In this film, the hollow shell is human memory – but human memory has taken on a new form in our modern age.

Every culture lives on stories of quests for immortality, or the Faust myth. But the art that pervades the film is another kind of immortality. It can survive storms (as we see in Andrei Rublev), yet humans can drown. It can become a part of the vacuum of space, yet humans need spacesuits. It’s a form of afterlife that lives on for centuries, if millennia: but Hari is vulnernable – as she gains more humanity, she gains the ability to almost suffocate on oxygen, perceived to be dead. Kris’ memory of her death a decade ago will disappear with his death.

Art, as a preservation of memory, to build a memory, is based on memory. The painting of the icy river draws parallel to the home movie of the snow back home. But it’s a hollow shell, just as Hari is, complete with embellishments, not representing human experience as humans experience it.