Rating: 3.5/5
Bol and Rial flee South Sudan with Nyagak, only to lose her on the boat ride from France to England. In England, a committee summons Bol and Rial to grant them probational asylum in London, with strict restrictions—weekly check-ins, a £74 allowance that they may not supplement with work, and a house of the government’s choosing that they may not move from. They must follow these rules, or the government will deport them.
The government assigns them to a rundown house full of trash and broken appliances, telling them they are lucky for getting a place all to themselves. Their case worker, Mark, encourages them to assimilate and be “one of the good ones.” Bol takes this to heart and does his best to assimilate, but Rial does not want to abandon their roots.
At night, Bol hears Nyagak’s voice in the walls. The sound of tenement neighbors accosting them collides with the screams and cries they heard in South Sudan. But the experiences grow stranger, as though nightmares bleed into reality. What evil lives in their walls? What can they do to appease it?
How much grief is enough to move on? Can you decide that for yourself? Or must you be subject to the body’s mourning process, day after day, when all you want is a moment where it doesn’t hurt so much? You can change your life and try to start anew. You can hold the cherished memories at arm’s length. But grief will end when it will end.
The film explores the refugee experience of belonging nowhere and the eternal debt asylum countries put on refugees. The specter in their house is a mirror—the impossible promise of safety in return for an unknowable price all encased in the incomprehensible trauma they faced and the guilt of surviving when others did not.
It’s a shame they couldn’t get a cinematographer or lighting team experienced with filming black skin. Wunmi Mosaku and Sope Dirisu disappear in the already too-dark scenes. I’ve seen worse, but it’s disappointing all the same.
In a deluge of horror films exploring grief, this film finds an underexplored avenue through our refugee characters and their cultural background. The arcs are familiar, but the textures are fresh.
For a full-length debut, this is quite an achievement.