The Other Side of Hope
Director: Aki Kaurismaki
24 June 2024
See
Waldemar Wikstrom (Sakari Kuosmanen) a Finnish traveling salesman sells up his stock of shirts, separates from his wife, and begins again after winning big at poker by buying a restaurant, ‘The Golden Pint’. He crosses paths with Khaled (Sherwan Haji) and gives him a job. The Syrian refugee fled Aleppo with only the shirt on his back and his sister, who he lost at the Hungarian border.
Think
My favourite scene was simple. Two refugees trying to make new lives for themselves smoke and speak candidly about the languishing of their new lives:
“I think I’m going mad, says Mazdak (Simon Al-Bazoon).
“Why?” asks Khaled.
I’ve been here for a year already, and I don’t go forward or backward. I need a job.”
“What did you do in Iraq?”
“I was a nurse. But my papers are no good here. I cleaned a metro station for two months. Two months, and that was it. I’d need three jobs anyway to bring my family here. I bring no joy to anyone. I can’t help myself, so I could help others.”
“You seem happy and satisfied.”
“I pretend. Melancholy ones are the first ones they send back. All melancholics are sent back. I’m too young to died. And I don’t want to die yet. Even the Imam says I’m worldly. Even the Imam! That’s what saved me. When they raided my home to get me I was in the town. In the morning I packed my bags and ran.:
“So I should pretend and smile, too?”
Yes! It will help. Just don’t smile in the street, they might think you’re crazy. You’ll get into trouble.”
“You confuse me. Should I smile or cry?”
“You’ll understand later.”
Feel
It’s comforting to see Kaurismaki regulars Kuosmanen who was in The Man Without a Past, and Kati Outinen again, as well as Janne Hgytiainen from Fallen Leaves. It gives these Finnish films a vaudeville troop intimacy, more than the comparable Cillian Murphy and Christopher Nolan, or Leonardo Dicaprio and Martin Scorsese collaborations. Although we don’t know their names as readily, we recognise the director and the actors as kindred spirits.
