One thing Euro filmmakers (an almost totally Left or ultra-Left cadre) love are stories about the dignity of illegal immigrants. Recently, there has been Lorna's Silence by the Dardennes and Welcome, by Philippe Lioret (just to name two) (and not to say anything of the Dardennes masterful La Promesse from 1996). One big hit at the recent Cannes festival was Le Havre, another story in the same vein. Most of these movies are character-driven and move along on the energy of our communal outrage at the stubborn governments who won't let these honest, good people live and work in peace. As an ultra-liberal myself who doesn't have a big problem with illegal immigration, I generally find these stories a bit shallow and mostly uninteresting in style and substance (with the obvious exception of the Dardennes who can't help but shit gold when they shit).
Illegal, by Olivier Masset-Depasse, is yet another Belgian/French film about a well-meaning illegal immigrant mother being torn apart from her young son and her dreams by a heartless immigration system. In it, Tania (Anne Coesens) is a middle-aged woman from Russia who moves to Brussels for some job opportunities as an industrial building janitor. The films opens with her finding out her immigration paperwork won't come through and her responding by burning off her fingerprints with a hot iron.
A few years later, her son is in elementary school and totally socialized into Belgian society. She insists they speak in French on the bus and not Russian (so as not to tip off the Belgian authorities, who are apparently suspicious of all Russian speakers... because Belgium is a police-state, dontcha know). One day, the says something to his mom in Russian and the authorities are right there to demand her papers. When she can't produce them, she's arrested and gets stuck in a Kafkaesque tale of bad decisions on her part and ruthless regulations from the government. At some point she's shockingly beaten and there's a suggestion that the Belgian immigration services rapes some female detainees (not Tania, but some of her friends).
This is all a very black-and-white sorta story. Tania is good and the government is bad. Her decisions, sometimes rashly made, are never seen as anything but understandable and good. The State and its various police forces are seen as blind and hapless, with a few silly keystone-copsy moments of extreme foolishness (apparently cops who are moving prisoners are easily fooled by cunning immigrant women). It's all very tiresome.
Throughout the film we are led away from the obvious fact that Tania is in Belgium illegally (her son is illegal too, by the way) and really shouldn't be there. We never see why she should be allowed to get a pass from the law - it's just assumed that because she's the main character and we like her she should be able to stay. I'm not saying her cause is pointless, but why should I be forced to root against the government who is simply doing what it's supposed to be doing? Wouldn't a government with immigration laws it didn't enforce be a lame bad guy?
And I guess that's exactly the problem with the film. This shouldn't be a good-guy/bad-guy story. This should be a character study of this woman who makes quick decisions in panic that turn her case into a nightmare situation. There's no need for such government bashing. It just strikes me as easy and lazy on a script/concept level and banal as a final product.
Stars: 2 of 4
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