To a Land Unknown

For those seeking sanctuary and the prospects of a better life, the hope of reaching a promised land holds an abiding attraction. That’s particularly true for those who are desperate to change their fates, and perhaps no one understands this better than refugees seeking to flee their circumstances. Unfortunately, that promise is often just that – a promise – and one that’s frequently and perpetually out of reach. Such are the conditions addressed in writer-director Mahdi Fleifel’s narrative feature debut, the story of Palestinian cousins Chatila (Mahmoud Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), who, like many Middle Eastern migrants, have left behind their lives in Lebanese refugee camps for the hope of a better future in Europe. Their goal is to relocate to Germany, but, as with many of their peers, their journey stalls in Greece, the gateway to the heart of the continent and their eventual destination. The cousins lack the funds to pay smugglers for counterfeit documents and passage, so they live on the streets of Athens, struggling to find ways to get by, including theft, hustling and taking advantage of others. Their plight is a frustrating one, a scenario made more complicated by Reda’s on-again/off-again drug use, a condition that repeatedly results in financial fits and starts and growing anxiety over the duo’s inability to move forward. This, in turn, launches them into pursuing an array of increasingly dangerous schemes to fulfill their plans, but will these questionable ploys pan out? The film thus plumbs the desperation that they, like many refugees, often repeatedly experience, especially under present-day conditions. In doing so, the film earnestly evokes a profound degree of empathy for the characters’ exasperating circumstances and generally without judgment, outcomes made possible in large part by the compelling performances of the picture’s two leads. The mood underlying this story is further enhanced by its aptly employed grainy, suitably gritty 16mm cinematography, visually reinforcing the nature of everyday living experienced by the beleaguered protagonists. What’s more, this offering draws heavily from the narratives of “Midnight Cowboy” (1969) and “Casablanca” (1942), including many plot elements that pay fitting homages to these storied Oscar winners. However, for all its strengths, this release tends to meander at times, with some sequences that go insufficiently resolved and others that feel more than a little convoluted. Moreover, on occasion it feels as if the filmmaker was ambivalent about which storyline choices he wanted to make – those of a truly original cinematic tale or those of a picture aimed at giving well-intentioned but somewhat underdeveloped nods to the screen classics from which it derived much of its influence, resulting in something of a mixed bag. Those modest shortcomings aside, however, “To a Land Unknown” effectively provides viewers with a look inside a world that most of us never see but to which we seriously need to have our eyes opened.