(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Mediterranean
Director and screenplay: Jonas Carpignano, Photo: Wyatt Garfield
Refugees embarking on a long and perilous journey to the promised Europe. Either on foot or over the sea. We have heard the story many times now. But have we really heard it? Or listened to it? This year alone, there are more than 780 refugees who have taken the road. In Norway, we are approaching 000. It does not seem to be improving. We are in the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. Fences are erected against the new arrivals. They are abused by the police.
"Oh so cruel," we might say, shedding a tear. But what do we feel, and how deep does the tear drop stick? To what extent are we able to sit in their place at all, benched in front of the gold bar on the plasma screen with Friday tacos and Christmas beers?
Sober narrative. There is so much we know, but do we really know? There are many scoundrels, we know, who take care of people's misery. There are many of them in Jonas Carpignano's sparkling, yet heartbreaking, debut film Mediterranean. It is important – because with this film we finally get a solid story about a couple of refugees, from their perspective, without sweetness and moralization. I'm just annoyed at the thought that this should end up in Hollywood. Fortunately, this is exemplary sober and subdued storytelling, with few heroes, but many people with diffuse motives and unclear project of life.
Ayiva (Koudous Seihon) and Abas (Alassane Sy) flee from Burkina Faso, through the Libyan Desert, before embarking on the Mediterranean voyage. Before that time, they have been robbed by road robbers and stolen money. Yes, one of their fellow fugitives has even been killed because he dared to stand up to the villains. Out on the sea, there is hardly anyone who can control the fragile boat, which (of course) is completely crowded. But it goes some way, nonetheless, when Ayiva rules. On the road there are also some who fall into the sea and get lost, before the boat finally encounters Italian coastguard vessels. Ayiva and Abas settle in very miserable conditions in the small town of Rosarno in the southern Italian state of Calabria.
Uncertain fate. The atrocities along the way are a story of their own, but the disappointments that await when Ayiva and Abas arrive in our continent are growing ever larger and overwhelming Abas in particular. The European dream was not much to brag about, it turned out. When their three-month visa expires, they have to work for slave wages as orange pickers, while the women have to prostitute themselves.
The fate of the brothers is uncertain and bleak. Even worse is when a couple of Africans are shot, and the local police evict friends of the two protagonists from their hard-fought home "because the neighbors do not want them in the neighborhood". It all ends in a nasty confrontation, based on real events, where hundreds of migrants set fire to cars and ended up arguing with police.
When it breaks loose and the rain rains down completely, only the flashes of lightning light up the frightened faces of the boat. Otherwise, it's just a bleak dark and howl.
Close to the events. Mediterranean let's get very close to the events – because although the movie can be considered a voiceover for thousands of migrants and is a fiction movie, it is actually based on actor Koudous Seihon's own experiences. Seihon, who plays Ayiva, got to know 31-year-old director Campignano when the latter went to Rosarno to document the turmoil.
Campignano, who himself has a West African father and an Italian mother, has in several contexts expressed concern about the growing racism we see in Europe as the refugee flow increases. His visit to Rosarno lasted for months. He became acquainted with the Africans from the demonstration, and eventually became close friends with Seihon. Their relationship led to the short film A Chjana (2012), which in turn led to the Mediterranea. The two friends live together today.
It is when the refugees remain anonymous, historyless, "the others", that racism and xenophobia spread.
acknowledgment Work. The distance between knowledge and insight is crucial, and determines how we relate to our own and others' lives. There is so much we know, but of which we have no deep understanding – any acknowledgment – of. We know it is deadly to smoke, for example, yet some of us continue to do so. If we had recognized that we were dying of tobacco, we would have stopped smoking. Anything else would have been irrational. But knowledge is not activated as part of us, as part of our narrative, and thus is not internalized and leads to action.
We also know that others are suffering, but we rarely do anything about it. This has to do with empathy, with solidarity and empathy: can we really live in the other's point of view, see his and her understanding of reality, the other moves so close to our life story that it changes. Maybe we feel powerless or have enough of our own anyway – but if the insight into the other person's suffering had gone deep enough, we would have done something. It is a fallacy to think that we dedicate our entire lives to helping the other whether we have acknowledged his or her suffering, but the important thing is that we have begun to unravel the thread of empathy and solidarity through the insight that has become part of us. . Once we have understood, we have begun a process of recognition in which we approach the other as a being, not as a stranger who does not concern us.
Hopeless glimpses. There is one scene in particular that sticks with me in the movie. In the dark, out at sea, the refugees are not only victims of a bleak fate, but of the unruly elements – storms and waves. It is also dark when the waves hit them and the wind threatens to knock them out of the boat. None of the refugees carry flashlights with them, and when it breaks loose and the rain rains down completely, only the flashes of lightning light up the frightened faces of the boat. Otherwise, it's just a bleak dark and howl. This is an eerie moment, and a sequence that drills into the heart of what is actually happening on these Mediterranean journeys.
In all its cruelty there is, after all, a poetry in these pictures, but a poetry that never lets go of the awfulness that is enlightened. There is also – as mentioned – a realism here, an intimacy and closeness to the protagonists, who remain sober and observant, on the border of the documentary.
Refugee perspective. We should not imagine that we can really see anything from the refugees' point of view with a movie like Mediterranean, but it plays an essential role nonetheless. The important thing about the film – I cannot stress this enough – is that it can mark the beginning of our attempt to look for these lost people's perspectives.
It is therefore so important that we tell again and again from their perspective, from the refugee's point of view, something this film does more sincerely than any other film I have seen. When we realize how important it is, we will look for them, try to look like them, through stories, films and artwork that try to articulate this view. It is when the refugees remain anonymous, historyless, "the others", that racism and xenophobia spread. Mediterranean Therefore, initiate an imaginative leadership work by giving a group a face, a story, an identity. It's not much more important than that.
Also read about Mediterranea in the article on the LUX film award, where Mediterranea was one of the nominees, on page 16.
