Europa
The British actor Adam Ali triumphs as an Iraqi refugee taking the Balkan route in Haider Rashid’s physically powerful drama.
The central figure in Haider Rashid’s Europa is a young man from Iraq, a refugee seeking safety in Europe. Taking what has become known as the Balkan route, this youth, Kamal (Adam Ali), is seen on the border between Turkey and Bulgaria where he finds himself at the mercy of traffickers who cannot be trusted. He escapes from their clutches and attempts to make his own way through the forest and across much extremely hard terrain. The route is hazardous in itself, but even worse is the danger he faces from border police patrols and from migrant hunters. Europa may be short in length at 72 minutes but it is a striking addition to the number of films we have had recently about refugees.
Rashid was born in Italy but has told of how his father left Iraq and took the Balkan route in 1978. He has acknowledged too that he was drawn to the subject matter in the light of the current situation in Afghanistan which will result in many more people having to make this journey. This doubtless means that for him Europa is specific to its setting, but for most viewers the film will speak about such plights more broadly and stand alongside such recent works as Jonas Poher Rasmussen's Flee. The approach taken by Rashid is not as unusual as that of Rasmussen who chose to make an animated feature but, nevertheless, Europa is presented in a very individual way.
Rashid’s aim here is to create a film which makes the viewer feel that he is sharing Kamal's experience and he does this through the way in which he presents the material. First and foremost, he makes identification with Kamal as physical as possible. He recognises that two very different methods can both be employed to this same end: with an actor as persuasive as Ali, big close-ups of his facial features encourage us to share his feelings, but equally frequent shots of Kamal seen from behind make us sense that we are moving forward with him and seeing things through his eyes. No less important is the decision to make him an everyman figure, by which I mean that we are given no background story, no flashbacks that would make us respond to him as a character with a story of his own. Instead, we are drawn into sharing his identity: we become as fearful as he is of what he might next encounter and also as uncertain when it comes to not knowing whether he can trust those he meets to help him.
Since Kamal is on his own for most of the time, it is natural that there is a minimum of dialogue in the film, but even that adds to the character and the viewer becoming as one. In All Is Lost (2013) Robert Redford held the screen on his own and the other roles here are so subsidiary that Ali comes close to having to do the same. He is admirably convincing and, given the nature of the material, Rashid sensibly realises that the piece needs to avoid being over-extended. Even as it is, there is a slight danger of repetition just ahead of the film’s final section which some may find more ambiguous than others. This film does, in fact, have a precursor in a Czech feature from 1964 Jan Němec’s Diamonds of the Night which is arguably even more powerful in its impact. But I may feel that to be so because I saw that film first and for many Europa will have a sharp and vivid impact all the more forceful because they have seen nothing quite like it before.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Adam Ali, Svetlana Yancheva, Pietro Ciciriello, Mohamed Zouaoui.
Dir Haider Rashid, Pro Haider Rashid, Screenplay Haider Rashid and Sonia Giannetto, Ph Jacopo Maria Caramella, Pro Des Francesco Bacci, Ed Haider Rashid and Sonia Giannetto, Costumes Alice Rinaldi.
A Radical Plans production/Iraqi Ministry of Culture/Toscana Film Commission-Bulldog Film Distribution.
72 mins. Iraq/Italy/Kuwait. 2021. UK Rel: 18 March 2022. Cert. 12A.
