The Ceremony
A moving but flawed tale of illegal immigrants in Yorkshire introduces us to more than one major new talent.
Image courtesy of Tull Stories.
This first feature by Jack King on which he is director, writer and editor has already earned praise and indeed at the 2024 Edinburgh International Film Festival it won the coveted Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence. Even so, I had not expected anything as outstanding as the first hour or so of The Ceremony turns out to be. Indeed, its first few minutes are breathtaking since, along with King’s astute direction, we have widescreen images in a car wash shot in black-and-white which immediately mark out the photographer Robbie Bryant as exceptional (his previous work had been limited to shorts and commercials). Bryant's contribution maintains that distinction throughout but King’s screenplay, so subtle and well-judged for much of the time, falls apart in the last half hour.
In 2020 Ben Sharrock made a film about asylum seekers entitled Limbo which was deeply sincere and generally well received. The Ceremony shares much in common with that film including a central focus on the relationship between two men from abroad who are illegal immigrants. However, Limbo was set in Scotland whereas The Ceremony is set in Yorkshire and King’s central characters are a Romanian named Cristi (Tudor Cucu-Dumitrescu) and Yusuf (Erdal Yildiz) who is from Kurdistan whereas Sharrock’s film featured a Syrian and an Afghan. However, both films set out to tell a story with the same aim: to portray immigrants not as figures specially designed to arouse sympathy in a propagandist way but as fully rounded individuals to whom the viewer responds on the grounds of common humanity. These two works most appropriately allow for fellow feeling to develop not only between the viewer and the characters but between the two central figures themselves whose contrasted ethnic backgrounds mean that they could in this instance be in conflict with each other at times.
Seeking to find a story that would enable him to express what he wanted to say, Jack King starts off in a car wash in his home city of Bradford where the owner, Zully (Hemin Omar), has a staff mainly made up of immigrants. Clashes between those of differing nationalities can easily arise and when a Rolex watch goes missing accusations are quickly made. One particular man (Mo’min Swaitat) is picked on as the likely culprit but next day he is found dead, probably a suicide. It's an incident which unites Cristi and Yusuf in a common cause because, while reporting the death to the police would be standard procedure, it would also lead to the likely exposure of the staff being in England illegally. Consequently, it makes sense for these two men to cooperate by putting the body in a van and driving out across the Yorkshire Dales in search of a suitable spot where the body can be left. But, if this shared task unites the two men, Yusuf’s background makes him feel that disposing of the body should involve a proper burial with Muslim rights whereas Cristi just wants to find the best spot to get rid of the body as quickly as possible.
The opening scenes in the car wash are quickly sketched in but, if the quality of Bryant’s images transfixes us immediately, we are also aware just how characterful are the faces of all of the chosen actors. Once the story gets underway the strength of the performances by the two leads Cucu-Dumitrescu and Yildiz become apparent and King’s screenplay brings out the characters of Cristi and Yusuf with real subtlety whether it be through outlooks and beliefs that draw them apart or in contrast to that the task that encourages rapport between them. Other characters are decidedly incidental and King's direction, aided by a suitable music score from Yuma Koda and an awareness of how natural sounds can add to the atmosphere, fully encourages the viewer to identify with the two men in their endeavour. That sense is so strongly built up that it seems a sudden but minor misjudgment when King opts to take the camera away from them to view a deep hole or well not from their viewpoint but from inside it.
It is, perhaps, rather unexpected when, later on, the drama suddenly takes a turn which involves a sudden discovery of a significant nature. It is something that ups the dramatic stakes and it validly disturbs the growing rapport between the two men. However, what follows needs to be as convincing as what has preceded it and unfortunately it is here that the film begins to fall short. The actual narrative starts to lack conviction (it includes the two men parting, Cristi getting lost on the moors and the two subsequently coming together again) and other elements too are introduced which take the film far away from the credible, naturalistic tone of its first hour. We now have vaguely defined touches that are either surreal or paranoid and extend to the appearance of a goat viewed, presumably on account of ethnic beliefs, as a magical creature. The last ten minutes of the film seek to restore that earlier manner but the damage has been done. Because of that when we hear an ethnic song by Yusuf expressing his emotion it lacks the poignancy that it might have had and when the ceremonial burial finally happens it possesses less emotional force than might have been expected. For that matter belated recollections by Cristi which prove to be about the dead man would be far more effective had his identity been clearly established earlier instead of leaving it to the viewer to gradually realise that this must be the same person whose background is being revealed when Cristi talks about somebody named Nasser.
Others may of course be less put off than I was by the last third of The Ceremony. Normally when I feel that a piece falls away to this extent I refrain from recommending it, but The Ceremony is a work for which I would make an exception in this respect. The fine acting, the deeply impressive direction of so much of it and the exceptional quality of the photography are all huge assets and, when all that is allied to the film’s admirably humane portrait of immigrants, there is quite enough here for me to hope that The Ceremony will be widely seen. I want to encourage that regardless of the reservations that I have expressed.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Tudor Cucu-Dumitrescu, Erdal Yildiz, Mo’min Swaitat, Hemin Omar, Liam Thomas, Mustafa Husseini, Catalin Vasile, Mihai Visan, Ahmad Sultan, Arnold Baksi, Liz Hutchinson.
Dir Jack King, Pro Hollie Bryan and Lucy Meer, Screenplay Jack King, Ph Robbie Bryant, Set Dec Delia O’Brien, Ed Jack King, Music Yuma Koda, Costumes Laurie Nuttall.
Cosmosquare Films/Strive Films/Pitstop Films Ltd.-Tull Stories.
92 mins. UK. 2024. UK Rel: 22 August 2025. Cert. 15.
