Dardanelles “Tori and Lokita”: Film Review | skin 2022

tori and lokita These are probably the saddest filmmakers, directors and producers, Jean-Pierre and Luke Darden, who haven’t filmed yet, and that’s really something since we’re talking about filmmakers. Პροობა, son, Lorna’s silence, two days, one night And, of course, previous Palme d’Or bouquet winners rosette s Boy. But while in the past many of their films have ended with the slightest hint of solace, hope or grace breaking through the darkness of social realism, the prominent Belgian filmmaker brothers don’t get such happy applause this time around.

The story unfolds once again in the district of Podunka, near Liège and Condorcet, about two underage African immigrants (played by non-professional Pablo Schils and Joel Mbundu) who pretend to be brothers in order to obtain an elderly Lokita as a refugee. But the children were reluctant to enter the world of crime to pay off debts and send home the necessary money. The most optimistic thing that can be said about the film is that the tragedy towards which it tirelessly advances – in the background it practically sounds like a fast train – does not kill. All The characters we finally love.

And yet, it might be Darden’s most emotionally engaging film of all time: a complete tragedy centered on characters who totally deserve our sympathy, our pity, all the “pathy you have.” There isn’t a touch of guilt or a touch of moral uncertainty as in the case of the central characters. unknown girl ANY Ahmed young. One would think this could be a more commercial vehicle for distributors, but unfortunately the lack of big-name artists and the public’s reluctance to pick up stories about immigrants from non-European territories can make it harder, if not easier, to sell. resellers. This is a completely different kind of tragedy.

Economical, as always, the daredevils almost started the story. in half meat, Has acted in the background of many dramas, dust and characters absorbed. The long close-up, which covers the entirety of the first scene, looks closely at Lokita (Mbundu), a young woman who may be 15 or even 16 years old. Authorities are interested in how he found his brother Tori (Schils) in a West African orphanage when he was 8 years old, though he hadn’t seen him since childhood. His face shows anxiety, which foreshadows the panic attacks he often has throughout the film.

He can’t answer because it’s really a lie. We eventually find out that these two, with no biological connection and actually from two different countries (Cameroon and Benin), met while traveling Europe together, became good friends, and that Lokita may have saved Tori’s life at some point in time. future. . It seems Tori has already gotten permission to stay or hopes to do so soon, probably because she’s a few years younger than Lokita, or because her story was abandoned as a child on suspicion of witchcraft.

Lokita introduces his sister, probably because it gives her a better chance of being with him; Otherwise, you will be deported home just for being an economic migrant and not as a refugee. For now, they have the right to stay at the state center for migrant children, which is freely controlled by social workers.

The movie doesn’t really go into the details of how they got there and whether they deserved to stay, though it’s clear the filmmakers are on the kids’ side. All we really need to know is that they are essentially good kids, honest and true to each other on their word, not bosses, and deeply committed to looking out for each other so that multiple blood brothers and sisters can match. . That means they work together in the evenings at a nearby Italian restaurant and encourage guests to use the karaoke machine to their own music. The focal point of their ensemble is a duet with a hideous song in Italian that they learned while being cared for in Italy. (The sweet, passionate, lullaby-style melody rejects cruel lines about gradually larger animals eating little ones, making it a suitable synecdoche for the film itself.)

After the song, they have to spend the night delivering drugs to a chef all over town, an Albanian criminal commander named Betim (Alban Ukai) who prepares little packets of Gram kids powder and marijuana to see when he wakes up. Do not prepare orders for spaghetti carbonara. Sometimes he gives the kids pokachija hot from the oven to eat after one of the shifts. He also uses Lokita for sexual exploitation and pays an extra 50 euros if he performs oral sex on her.

These aren’t the only predatory European males that children need to watch out for. Two Africans, a man and a woman, keep an eye on Lokita in town, asking why she hasn’t been to church recently to see them and the compensation they owe for trafficking her and Tori across the Mediterranean. And her mother often calls him home to send him a sense of guilt, to send him more money through a bank service, to pay for the education of his five brothers.

Desperate, Lokita agrees to work as a “gardener” at a Betim-owned cannabis factory, which operates an industrial facility outside of town. He is literally locked up for three months in a sadly damp environment and is warned that in the event of a fire he must call someone close. But the worst thing about the situation is that he doesn’t have a phone to talk to Tori, so they can’t check each other’s safety.

Aside from the songs performed by the children, there is, as is often the case in Darden’s film, no score to slow down the action or the mood to let us know what’s to come. This makes shocks more sudden and upsetting and often just exacerbates the tension. In the early stages, Tori struggles not to be followed by Lokita, and is taken to Jaiwair by several police officers, which makes them particularly nervous as they have drugs in their bags. In addition to illustrating how cold these kids are as they interact with the cops as if nothing bothers them, we’re subtly concerned about Tory’s road safety: later on, when she bombs the city with a broken bike, the viewer is constantly feeling down. . He fears falling, which will prevent him from seeing Lokita again.

The tension never subsides and is especially evident in the scene where Tori cunningly tries to figure out where Batimi is keeping Lokita, something like McGiver-The style break scene is worth it. breaking Bad ANY you better call saul But without dropping a vintage needle into the bottom.

A little touch of adventure can also mean soft relief in a, let’s not forget, heartbreaking movie. But it works flawlessly because, like some smart mousetraps in their own right, every detail, performance, and masterpiece is executed to impeccable perfection. That goes for Igor Gabriel’s usual product design of Darden Darden, the fluid camera of DP Benoit Dervaux, and the impeccable performances of Schils and Mbundu: curves that are unappreciated but as emotionally real as the needles of a compass. that point to true north.