Rating: 3.5/5
Criterion Challenge 2022 | 35/52 | Growing Pains: coming-of-age films
A woman interviews sixteen-year-old Lokita, who is looking for a work visa. The woman asks Lokita about the story she gave immigration when she entered Belgium. She asks about Lokita’s school in Benin, her principal, and meeting her eleven-year-old brother, Tori, who has his papers. Lokita’s answers only beg more questions and introduce contradictions. Overwhelmed, Lokita stops to take her medication and asks for a postponement of the interview.
Tori wakes Lokita up at the center where they live, grilling her on her Bariba and attempting to fill in gaps surrounding the orphanage. That night, Lokita and Tori perform karaoke at a restaurant. Afterward, they go downstairs to meet with Betim, who gives them satchels of weed and coke and an address to add to their route. They also get some money to kick off the karaoke—the two courier the drugs, dealing with shortchangers and negotiators. Back at the restaurant, they get their 50 euros. Batim offers Lokita an additional 50 for oral sex. She initially declines, but Batim insists.
The next day, Lokita takes the 100 euros to Western Union to wire to her mother in Garoua, Cameroon. Justine, a woman from church, grabs her and takes her to see Firmin. Firmin and Justine helped Tori get to Belgium and expect payment. Lokita hands it over, and Justine searches Lokita’s bag and underneath her clothes for more. Justine finds an additional 50 in Lokita’s shoes.
The film follows Lokita and Tori as they navigate their complicated life in Belgium.
— Why won't they give me my papers, Tori? Why? — They don't want us.
What makes this film work is Joely Mbundu’s and Pablo Schils’s performances as Lokita and Tori, respectively. Though Lokita wishes to be the adult and the provider, her panic attacks and impulsive decisions get her into more trouble than needed. Tori has more of a survival instinct, able to lie and ask for what she needs. In this way, the film reflects how this world punishes emotional honesty and sincerity.
It’s difficult to determine the line between representation of real issues and exploitation for an emotional impact on an audience. Similarly, the film has difficulty maintaining a sense of realism as it chases melodramatic story elements. The film’s back half is tense and frustrating in equal parts as characters make impulsive choices.
The only other movie I’ve seen from the Dardenne’s is Rosetta, which feels similar to this in that it looks at troubled youth surviving in Belgium. Following the social realist model, the Dardennes focus on the working class and youth. Their films tend not to moralize, only observe. They follow that model to a degree but take the movie in uncharacteristic directions.
Still, aspects of this story feel vital, especially in a world where the treatment of immigrants and overseas workers only grows worse as Late Capitalist exploitation corrodes. This film elicits empathy for its characters, who are otherwise invisible.