“In a way, it’s sort of the fate of Palestinians, not to end up where they started, but somewhere unexpected and far away.“To a Land Unknownopens up with a quote by the famous Palestinian-American scholar,Edward Said, thrusting us into the fatalistic, rootless tone of the film. Danish-Palestinian directorMahdi Fleifelpulls no punches in depictingthe stark reality of survivingin a world where no one believes you should exist, where humanity is as distant as your home. Centering on two refugees, Fleifel avoids the palatable construct of a downtrodden figure with strict morals that make them deserving of the world’s pity and aid, and instead batters us with the honest consequences of seeking asylum, where survival isn’t always savory. Yet it is a deeply empathetic portrayal that keeps us rooting for the protagonists, one that resonates and provokes.
What Is ‘To a Land Unknown’ About?
To a Land Unknownis almost a spiritual sequel to Fleifel’sA World Not Ours, a documentary that draws on his own experiences in a refugee camp in Lebanon. InTo a Land Unknown, Chatila (Mahmoud Bakri) is a Palestinian refugee in Greece, with a wife and son who are staying in a Lebanese camp while he tries to get them a better life. Accompanied by his cousin Reda (Aram Sabbah), his goal is to start a restaurant in Germany, which, in his eyes, is a “real” European country, unlike the Greek population who remind him of Arabs, conveying a sense of self-hatred for his identity and the circumstances it has catalyzed. To do so,he needs fake passports, which are expensive.
From the very opening of the film, we get a sense of the pair’s dynamics, as Chatila plans different ways to obtain the required money, while Reda follows along.From stealing purses to selling stolen shoes, the resourceful duo crosses moral boundaries to survive, though Chatila draws the line at sex work and drugs. When a young Palestinian boy, Malik (Mohammad Alsurafa), comes along,hoping to live with his aunt in Italy, Chatila devises a plan to safely traffic him there with a Greek woman called Tatiana (Angeliki Papoulia), kicking off a series of even more desperate and dangerous schemes that rattle the two protagonists and the audience.
‘To a Land Unknown’ Is Powerful, Empathetic, and Real
As the film progresses, it’s as if Fleifel is daring us to stop rooting for Chatila and Reda. Chatila is the mastermind of their ploys, increasing in ruthlessness and severity upon each failure, while Reda is painted as more humane, giving sympathy to the lost Malik when they first meet, but often succumbing to the “easy” cash-grabs of prostitutionand numbness of drugs. Butlike how Chatila never gives up on Reda, Fleifel ensures we never give up on themwith bold brushstrokes of honesty and rawness.
To a Land Unknownis as deeply uncomfortable as it’s supposed to be.It makes us accomplices to their crimes and voyeurs to their tragedies.Written by Fleifel,Fyzal Boulifa,andJason McColgan, the storytelling immerses us in the emotional and mental wasteland in which they live, where closure doesn’t exist, and permanent answers elude them. This ambiguity is made even more haunting by the minimal score, allowing each narrative beat to play out in undulating anxiety. Coupled with quotidian scenes of their day-to-day lives and the lived-in feel, it illustrates an existence built upon absence: the absence of security, faith, and compassion.
The decisions made in the film’s cinematography are the perfect counterpart to what it is trying to achieve.To a Land Unknownis grounded in social realism, where petty crimes and yelling at neighbors exist, but the scenes are stylistically shot from aesthetically interesting angles, extreme close-ups, and lingering frames. Scenes are wrapped in a tinted, almost grainy film that evokes a dream-like feel, becoming a point of contrast with the realism of it all. Yetthe discrepancycaptures the surreal qualityof their thankless endeavors, both becoming visually stimulating enough to engage viewers and distant enough to draw attention to the undercurrents of real, human urgency.
Performances Balance Humanity and Survival in ‘To a Land Unknown’
Despite being a film about displacement, Palestine is rarely mentioned in the script, but the absence of Chatila’s and Reda’s homeland weighs heavily on the atmosphere. Instead, it is conveyed through the performances by Bakri and Sabbah.It is Bakri here who arguably has the more difficult role of injecting humanity into the calculating and relentless Chatila, but he fleshes his character out terrifically. We believe Chatila’s intelligence and that gritty edge honed by a life’s worth of people dismissing and disappointing him, but it is tempered by softer scenes of yearning to reunite with his wife and son. His cunning is borne out of pure desperation, of aching hope for a better life that he frequently describes to Reda: an idyllic future where they don’t need much, just a safe roof over their heads and food on the table with their loved ones.
Reda is the humanizing counterpart to Chatila, where Sabbah perfects the facial expression of the wide-eyed follower, who is still open to seeing the good in others, to his detriment. Yet it is this sensitivity that leaves himvulnerable to the escapism of drugs, a major point of contention between the two of them that further humanizes Chatila. Together, their on-screen chemistry is dynamic and heartfelt, bouncing off each other with humor or emotional tantrums, but comforting in their bond. It’s the one instance of permanence in their fleeting physical, emotional and mental landscape. Their performances buoy the film’s powerful sentiment of surviving, no matter what it takes, then dealing with the consequences of it.I can confidently describeTo a Land Unknownas essential viewing, yet it is one I fear will disappear in the currents of whatever’s popular, as ephemeral as everything and everyone in the film is.
To a Land Unknowncomes to theaters on July 11.
To a Land Unknown
‘To a Land Unknown’ paints a brutally honest and empathetic portrait of the lives of Palestinian refugees.
Two Palestinian cousins, Chatila and Reda, navigate the harsh realities of life as undocumented refugees in Athens, dreaming of a new beginning in Germany. Their plans unravel when Reda’s drug addiction jeopardizes their savings, leading Chatila to devise a desperate scheme involving impersonating smugglers.
