London River: a powerful film about the unlikely intersections of human lives [MOVIE REVIEW]

Ousmane (Sotigui Kouyaté) and Elizabeth (Brenda Blethyn) intersect on seperate journeys to London in the aftermath of the 2005 terrorist bombings in the powerful film London River.

Ousmane (Sotigui Kouyaté) and Elizabeth (Brenda Blethyn) intersect on seperate journeys to London in the aftermath of the 2005 terrorist bombings in the powerful film London River.

Rachid Bouchareb is probably not a name you’ve heard before although he’s a director/writer/producer who has been nominated for an Academy Award three times and has racked up innumerable awards around the world for his intensely felt, deeply reasoned stories that challenge the boundaries of human expectation. His new, or actually newly released, film “London River” (a film that began receiving honors at international film festivals beginning in 2009) explores those boundaries and expectations with profound results.

On July 7, 2005, terrorists set off simultaneous suicide bombs on three underground trains and a bus in London killing 54 people and injuring more than 700. Watching the news from the safe confines of her Guernsey Island farm, Elizabeth (Brenda Blethyn) places a call to her daughter to make sure she is fine. At first annoyed that all her calls are going to unreturned voice mail, Elizabeth is worried enough to cross the channel to London and track down her daughter. The fear she is trying to control is heightened when she arrives at her daughter’s neighborhood and discovers it is over a halal butcher shop in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood. Although the butcher/landlord (Roschdy Zem) is very polite and accommodating by giving her access to her daughter’s apartment, Elizabeth reacts tersely to this disorienting situation. What would have possessed her daughter to live in such a place and what other secrets did she keep?

While Elizabeth futilely searches for her daughter and files missing persons paperwork with an overworked police force with much higher priorities, Ousmane (Sotigui Kouyaté), a devout Muslim, begins his trip across the channel from Paris to search for his son. Ousmane’s journey is the more difficult and emotionally harrowing in its own way as he has not seen his son in the 15 years since he left Africa to make his living in Paris. Begged by his distraught wife in Africa to make inquiries, he arrives in London, gravitating immediately to the same Muslim neighborhood and explains his dilemma to the Imam (Sami Bouajila). The Imam agrees to do whatever he can, although there can be little hope when there is so little to go on. Stoic and determined, his path continually runs parallel to that of Elizabeth until, finally, it unexpectedly intersects leaving her unprepared to deal with the search and possible loss of her only child as well as the anger and confusion generated by her daughter’s possible close relationship with a boy of such seemingly undesirable background. Elizabeth must try to overcome her anger, prejudice and fear in an attempt to understand the girl she thought she knew so well. For Ousmane, his search is one of discovery, the chance to know the unknowing and perhaps to reconnect with a part of himself he abandoned 15 years previously.

Bouchareb, known for his exploration of ethnicity, religious and racial intolerance, and kinship in the face of adversity, was concerned about the rise of Islamaphobia that had reared its ugly head even before the 7/7 bombings. In “London River” he pursues his long held belief that while such adversity may underscore cultural divisiveness it also has the potential to bind together those of disparate backgrounds. Calling upon two Franco-Algerian actors he has used to great effect in his other award-winning films, Bouchareb introduces us to Roschdy Zem, the butcher, who conveys the wariness and distrust common in so many proud men whose ethnic, cultural or religious differences have left them isolated outside of their own insular communities; and Sami Bouajila, the Imam, who warmly portrays a religious leader whose deep belief in the commonality of man emphasizes that a belief structure rooted in a higher power is for the good of mankind.

Sotigui Kouyaté, Ousmane, a renown actor in his native Mali, who previously worked with Bouchareb in “Little Senegal,” brings a Zen and quiet force to the father searching not just for a son but for comprehension in life. Kouyaté, in discussing his interpretation of the role and the film said, “It is a film about how we react to things. It teaches us that when you meet the other, don’t be scared to look them in the eye; for if you are brave enough to do so, you will finish by seeing yourself more clearly.” Sadly for those of us discovering him for the first time, he passed away in 2010.

It is Blethyn as the beleaguered Elizabeth, who is both transforming and transformative. Like her breakthrough role in “Secrets and Lies,” a performance that inspired Bouchareb to cast and write for her, her provincial view of life and its limited wonders is slowly stripped away, revealing eyes that convey hardness, fear, terror and resistance to change, yielding to an understanding that there are things that are not knowable but not necessarily wrong. She gives us a nuanced character who, sure of everything in her life, must confront demons and prejudices she didn’t know existed within her. Blethyn’s Elizabeth is all of us, that which we believe and that which we didn’t know.

Venture outside your comfort zone, travel to West L.A. and see this important film. Opening Friday December 16 at the Laemmle Royal.

Neely also writes a blog about writers in television and film at nomeanerplace.com

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