“Europa,” Iraq’s Entry in the 94th annual Oscars, Frames Epic Refugee Struggle
15 JANUARY 2022 • By Thomas Dallal
Outtake from director Haider Rashid’s Europa, Iraq’s Oscar entry for the 94th annual awards competition.

Thomas Dallal

 

Iraqi-Italian director Haider Rashid’s riveting Europa (2021) starkly portrays a small, but deeply scorching, fragment of the brutal reality and cruel human tragedy endured by countless refugees and asylum seekers seeking to enter Europe. In a microcosm set at and around the Turkey-Bulgaria frontier, lead character Kamal’s epic migratory struggle encapsulates the duress that millions like him have faced, and continue to face, after fleeing homes and countries during armed conflict and myriad other calamities. Accomplished 35-year-old Rashid’s latest film, his fifth feature, presents a compelling ode to millions that seek safer haven in faraway-from-home, unfamiliar and frequently hostile places, including Europe.

Europa centers around its young lead character Kamal, a hunted Iraqi asylum-seeker who breaches the Turkey-Bulgaria border. Kamal exudes a tormented, frenetic adrenalin reminiscent of Ali La Pointe, revolutionary fighter and protagonist in Gillo Pontecorvo’s equally riveting Battle for Algiers, albeit not with Algiers’ colonial liberation narrative. Europa nevertheless, and similarly, delivers epic, documentary-style dramatic historical fiction and does so powerfully, aligning in a fashion with Algiers’ esteemed genre. To categorize Europa as a thriller or a horror film, as some critics have, is to miss the point and suggests that reputed film cognoscenti, as if on cue, continue to miss the proverbial forest for the trees. As director Rashid himself pointedly describes the film’s vision:

The goal was to portray what is a tough, inhumane experience in the most realistic and visceral way possible; breathing, living, and fighting with a resilient but nonetheless suffering character who, with his small, almost minuscule story, represents the struggles of many.

While the film focuses strongly on realism and an intimate approach to the character, immersing the audience with a sense of presence, to me it holds a deeply symbolic nature as well: being an immigrant or a descendent of immigrants in Europe today, can often feel a lot like being lost in a wild forest, where friends are few and foes are many.

Rashid, son of an Italian mother and an Iraqi journalist, director and exile who fled Saddam Hussein’s Iraq for Europe in the late 1970s, grew up in Italy with significant exposure to film and the film business. Acting in one his father’s films before he was ten, Rashid spent his teenage summers “following my father around film festivals and cultural events.” He later became his father’s camera operator and filmed interviews his father made for television outlets all over the world, which piqued his interest and prompted his first screenwriting efforts. Rashid dropped out of film school shortly after starting in London, then, at 23, made his first film “Tangled Up in Blue”, about the son of a renowned Iraqi writer coping with his estranged father’s death in Baghdad. Evidently, Rashid never looked back and many more films have followed. This deep film experience, from the time of Rashid’s youth, bore bountiful filmic fruit in Europa.

Lead actor Adam Ali’s disturbing portrayal of Kamal’s duress in Europa painfully conjures a brutal obliteration of Kamal’s youthful naivete as he traces and claws his way through a harrowing solitary jungle trek for days and nights that reverberate like an eternity. Europa opens with Kamal’s jarring narrow nighttime escape from Bulgarian soldiers, to whom an extortionate human smuggler appears to have treacherously delivered Kamal and others. Fleeing terrified and alone into pitch black, densely forested and alien territory, Kamal the terrified-terrorized protagonist moves before the camera in an effectively macro point of view that is dominated by his face and this point of view persists to dominate until the end of the film: we are with him, in his face and almost constantly inside his pained and angst-filled heavy breathing. Europa conveys its emotionally charged trajectory with only incidental dialogue, confined to the latter part of the film and mainly from people Kamal encounters. Kamals’ world in Europa is almost entirely solitary, in the forest.

For his first dawn in this daunting forest, deeply resonant, groaning and sinister thwacking military helicopters overtake eerie forest birdsongs, a menacing soundscape that conjures threatening military birds of prey reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppola’s grim war classic, Apocalypse Now (1979). When agitated and adrenaline-wired Kamal rips a strip of cloth from his bright red Mohamed Salah tee-shirt to tourniquet his painfully gashed sneaker sole, he also seems to be shredding any youthful misconception of a warm and welcoming Europe or of ever attaining the legendary Egyptian soccer legend’s fame and glory as Liverpool’s star striker. In a scratchy voice, Kamal ekes out an Arabic lullaby and, seeming to recall his mother, we see a vulnerable boy far out of place in a terrifying, hostile and utterly lethal man’s world. This lethality is borne out in several harrowing near misses, but also directly in a scene that the film deftly registers as an additional torment Kamal forever will endure.

Haider Rashid is an Iraqi-Italian director and producer born in 1985. He directed Tangled Up In Blue, Silence: All Roads Lead To Music, It’s About To Rain and Street Opera, the short film The Deep and No Borders, the first Italian virtual reality film. His films have won awards at the Venice and Dubai festivals, as well as at the Nastri d’Argento ceremony.

Based solely on young British-Libyan actor Adam Ali’s compelling and highly emotive portrayal of Kamal, one can envision Ali progressing on to an illustrious career. His visceral depiction of a young asylum seeker’s duress ranks as required viewing for anyone still somehow harboring any doubt that the plight of refugees and asylum seekers warrants empathy and commensurately compassionate policy at the state level. This empathy should tangibly support, and compel, 146 states —virtually every state, that is — to fully honor obligations they formally have bound themselves to abide by as ratifiers of the 1951 Refugee Convention, a core pillar of the post-World War II human rights system.

The intricately sculpted and haunting design of Europa’s devoid-of-music soundtrack subtly complements unsettling, largely hand-held and literally in Kamal’s face cinematography. Hand-held agitation in the film’s unflinching tight framing amplifies viewer perception of Kamal’s own agitation. Within this cinematographic style, Adam Ali’s performance provides the film’s major cues and movement, no small task and one he wholly masters.  Artful use of highly selective focus additionally compounds Kamal’s angst and his fleeting ability to take in his  unsettling atmosphere while running, climbing, scratching and thrashing his way thru the endless forest, a veritable deer hunted and in fear for his life. This tightly edited, 75-minute, cinematography, sound, fury and fear cocktail irrepressibly, and lucidly, immerses beholders in Kamal’s epic ordeal with all of its frightening uncertainty.

Europa aptly closes with Kamal emerging from the forest but without a clear resolution or delivery out of his living hell, honoring the terrifying uncertainty that the plight of Kamal and millions like him entails. For all of its ambiguity, however, the film’s ending vaguely suggests a hopeful, perhaps even peaceful resolution — an obvious subtext being the untold baggage for Kamal and his descendants to heave and reckon with through their lifetimes, like millions of others similarly displaced, uprooted and dispossessed.

Europa achieves its dramatic objectives as expertly, and unusually, as Pontecorvo so hauntingly did in Algiers, alongside his legendary composer friend Ennio Morricone. Europa expertly thrusts a unified package of frenetically paced, unsettling and wholly terrifying, life and death drama at viewers with little mercy, as the subject matter truly deserves and requires. Accordingly, it deserved its recent designation as Iraq’s foreign feature film entry to the upcoming 94th Academy Awards and, although ultimately not making the shortlist, this viewer roots for it to register strong and positive impacts well beyond.

 

Thomas Dallal

Thomas Dallal Thomas Dallal is a widely published and award-winning Palestinian-America photojournalist, who grew up between upstate New York and Kuwait. After studying at McGill and moving to New York City, he photographed around the world for leading newspapers and magazines from... Read more

Thomas Dallal is a widely published and award-winning Palestinian-America photojournalist, who grew up between upstate New York and Kuwait. After studying at McGill and moving to New York City, he photographed around the world for leading newspapers and magazines from a NYC base for 15 years. Among others, Tom covered the first Palestinian Intifada, Syria, the summer 1993 Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, early ‘non-implementation’ days of the Oslo Process, especially in the Gaza Strip, the GAM insurrection in Aceh and, as well as the Americas from his 20-year New York City base. Tom obtained his New York license to practice law in 2008, worked on war crimes cases for the President and presiding appeals judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague before moving to Palestine in 2009 to work as legal advisor for the PLO during the US Senator George Mitchell led so-called proximity talks between the PLO and Israel. He continued to work in the international law, policy and humanitarian-development realms in and around Jerusalem for a decade, eventually coming full circle back to the visual, and audio, arts. Tom currently works as a documentary cinematographer and photographer, as well as legal and policy consultant in the Haifa and Jerusalem environs.

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Conversations on Food and Race with Andy Shallal

15 APRIL 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
Conversations on Food and Race with Andy Shallal
Book Reviews

Abū Ḥamza’s Bread

15 APRIL 2022 • By Philip Grant
Abū Ḥamza’s Bread
Columns

Libyan, Palestinian and Syrian Family Dinners in London

15 APRIL 2022 • By Layla Maghribi
Libyan, Palestinian and Syrian Family Dinners in London
Art

Artist Hayv Kahraman’s “Gut Feelings” Exhibition Reviewed

28 MARCH 2022 • By Melissa Chemam
Artist Hayv Kahraman’s “Gut Feelings” Exhibition Reviewed
Columns

Music in the Middle East: Bring Back Peace

21 MARCH 2022 • By Melissa Chemam
Music in the Middle East: Bring Back Peace
Essays

Mariupol, Ukraine and the Crime of Hospital Bombing

17 MARCH 2022 • By Neve Gordon, Nicola Perugini
Mariupol, Ukraine and the Crime of Hospital Bombing
Poetry

Three Poems of Love and Desire by Nouri Al-Jarrah

15 MARCH 2022 • By Nouri Al-Jarrah
Three Poems of Love and Desire by Nouri Al-Jarrah
Art

Fiction: “Skin Calluses” by Khalil Younes

15 MARCH 2022 • By Khalil Younes
Fiction: “Skin Calluses” by Khalil Younes
Opinion

Ukraine War Reminds Refugees Some Are More Equal Than Others

7 MARCH 2022 • By Anna Lekas Miller
Ukraine War Reminds Refugees Some Are More Equal Than Others
Book Reviews

Nadia Murad Speaks on Behalf of Women Heroes of War

7 MARCH 2022 • By Maryam Zar
Nadia Murad Speaks on Behalf of Women Heroes of War
Columns

“There’s Nothing Worse Than War”

24 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
“There’s Nothing Worse Than War”
Art

(G)Hosting the Past: On Michael Rakowitz’s “Reapparitions”

7 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Arie Amaya-Akkermans
(G)Hosting the Past: On Michael Rakowitz’s “Reapparitions”
Editorial

Refuge, or the Inherent Dignity of Every Human Being

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Jordan Elgrably
Refuge, or the Inherent Dignity of Every Human Being
Art & Photography

Children in Search of Refuge: a Photographic Essay

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Iason Athanasiadis
Children in Search of Refuge: a Photographic Essay
Columns

Getting to the Other Side: a Kurdish Migrant Story

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Iason Athanasiadis
Getting to the Other Side: a Kurdish Migrant Story
Film Reviews

“Europa,” Iraq’s Entry in the 94th annual Oscars, Frames Epic Refugee Struggle

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Thomas Dallal
“Europa,” Iraq’s Entry in the 94th annual Oscars, Frames Epic Refugee Struggle
Art & Photography

Refugees of Afghanistan in Iran: a Photo Essay by Peyman Hooshmandzadeh

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Peyman Hooshmandzadeh, Salar Abdoh
Refugees of Afghanistan in Iran: a Photo Essay by Peyman Hooshmandzadeh
Book Reviews

Meditations on The Ungrateful Refugee

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Rana Asfour
Meditations on <em>The Ungrateful Refugee</em>
Fiction

Fiction: Refugees in Serbia, an excerpt from “Silence is a Sense” by Layla AlAmmar

15 JANUARY 2022 • By Layla AlAmmar
Fiction: Refugees in Serbia, an excerpt from “Silence is a Sense” by Layla AlAmmar
Book Reviews

Temptations of the Imagination: how Jana Elhassan and Samar Yazbek transmogrify the world

10 JANUARY 2022 • By Rana Asfour
Temptations of the Imagination: how Jana Elhassan and Samar Yazbek transmogrify the world
Columns

An Arab and a Jew Walk into a Bar…

15 DECEMBER 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
An Arab and a Jew Walk into a Bar…
Fiction

Three Levantine Tales

15 DECEMBER 2021 • By Nouha Homad
Three Levantine Tales
Essays

Syria Through British Eyes

29 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Rana Haddad
Syria Through British Eyes
Columns

Burning Forests, Burning Nations

15 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
Burning Forests, Burning Nations
Book Reviews

The Vanishing: Are Arab Christians an Endangered Minority?

15 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
The Vanishing: Are Arab Christians an Endangered Minority?
Essays

A Street in Marrakesh Revisited

8 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Deborah Kapchan
A Street in Marrakesh Revisited
Columns

Refugees Detained in Thessonaliki’s Diavata Camp Await Asylum

1 NOVEMBER 2021 • By Iason Athanasiadis
Refugees Detained in Thessonaliki’s Diavata Camp Await Asylum
Art

Guantánamo—The World’s Most Infamous Prison

15 OCTOBER 2021 • By Sarah Mirk
<em>Guantánamo</em>—The World’s Most Infamous Prison
Interviews

Interview With Prisoner X, Accused by the Bashar Al-Assad Regime of Terrorism

15 OCTOBER 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably
Interview With Prisoner X, Accused by the Bashar Al-Assad Regime of Terrorism
Essays

Why Resistance Is Foundational to Kurdish Literature

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Ava Homa
Why Resistance Is Foundational to Kurdish Literature
Featured excerpt

The Harrowing Life of Kurdish Freedom Activist Kobra Banehi

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Kobra Banehi, Jordan Elgrably
The Harrowing Life of Kurdish Freedom Activist Kobra Banehi
Essays

Voyage of Lost Keys, an Armenian art installation

15 SEPTEMBER 2021 • By Aimée Papazian
Voyage of Lost Keys, an Armenian art installation
Columns

Afghanistan Falls to the Taliban

16 AUGUST 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
Afghanistan Falls to the Taliban
Weekly

World Picks: August 2021

12 AUGUST 2021 • By Lawrence Joffe
World Picks: August 2021
Columns

In Flawed Democracies, White Supremacy and Ethnocentrism Flourish

1 AUGUST 2021 • By Mya Guarnieri Jaradat
In Flawed Democracies, White Supremacy and Ethnocentrism Flourish
Weekly

Summer of ‘21 Reading—Notes from the Editors

25 JULY 2021 • By TMR
Summer of ‘21 Reading—Notes from the Editors
Latest Reviews

No Exit

14 JULY 2021 • By Allam Zedan
No Exit
Book Reviews

ISIS and the Absurdity of War in the Age of Twitter

4 JULY 2021 • By Jessica Proett
ISIS and the Absurdity of War in the Age of Twitter
Weekly

World Picks: July 2021

3 JULY 2021 • By TMR
World Picks: July 2021
Essays

Syria’s Ruling Elite— A Master Class in Wasta

14 JUNE 2021 • By Lawrence Joffe
Syria’s Ruling Elite— A Master Class in Wasta
Weekly

The Maps of Our Destruction: Two Novels on Syria

30 MAY 2021 • By Rana Asfour
The Maps of Our Destruction: Two Novels on Syria
Editorial

Why WALLS?

14 MAY 2021 • By Jordan Elgrably
Why WALLS?
Fiction

A Home Across the Azure Sea

14 MAY 2021 • By Aida Y. Haddad
A Home Across the Azure Sea
Essays

From Damascus to Birmingham, a Selected Glossary

14 MAY 2021 • By Frances Zaid
From Damascus to Birmingham, a Selected Glossary
Essays

We Are All at the Border Now

14 MAY 2021 • By Todd Miller
We Are All at the Border Now
Weekly

Beirut Brings a Fragmented Family Together in “The Arsonists’ City”

9 MAY 2021 • By Rana Asfour
TMR 7 • Truth?

Truth or Dare? Reinterpreting Al-Harīrī’s Arab Rogue

14 MARCH 2021 • By Farah Abdessamad
Truth or Dare? Reinterpreting Al-Harīrī’s Arab Rogue
TMR 7 • Truth?

Poetry Against the State

14 MARCH 2021 • By Gil Anidjar
Poetry Against the State
Columns

The Truth About Iraq: Memory, Trauma and the End of an Era

14 MARCH 2021 • By Hadani Ditmars
The Truth About Iraq: Memory, Trauma and the End of an Era
Columns

Memory and the Assassination of Lokman Slim

14 MARCH 2021 • By Claire Launchbury
Memory and the Assassination of Lokman Slim
Poetry

The Freedom You Want

14 MARCH 2021 • By Mohja Kahf
The Freedom You Want
TMR 6 • Revolutions

The Revolution Sees its Shadow 10 Years Later

14 FEBRUARY 2021 • By Mischa Geracoulis
The Revolution Sees its Shadow 10 Years Later
TMR 6 • Revolutions

Ten Years of Hope and Blood

14 FEBRUARY 2021 • By Robert Solé
Ten Years of Hope and Blood
TMR 5 • Water

Watch Water Films & Donate to Water Organizations

16 JANUARY 2021 • By TMR
Watch Water Films & Donate to Water Organizations
TMR 5 • Water

Iraq and the Arab World on the Edge of the Abyss

14 JANUARY 2021 • By Osama Esber
Iraq and the Arab World on the Edge of the Abyss
Columns

On American Democracy and Empire, a Corrective

14 JANUARY 2021 • By I. Rida Mahmood
On American Democracy and Empire, a Corrective
Film Reviews

Muhammad Malas, Syria’s Auteur, is the subject of a Film Biography

10 JANUARY 2021 • By Rana Asfour
Muhammad Malas, Syria’s Auteur, is the subject of a Film Biography
TMR 4 • Small & Indie Presses

Hassan Blasim’s “God 99”

14 DECEMBER 2020 • By Hassan Blasim
Hassan Blasim’s “God 99”
TMR 4 • Small & Indie Presses

Trembling Landscapes: Between Reality and Fiction: Eleven Artists from the Middle East*

14 DECEMBER 2020 • By Nat Muller
Trembling Landscapes: Between Reality and Fiction: Eleven Artists from the Middle East*
TMR 4 • Small & Indie Presses

Freedom is femininity: Faraj Bayrakdar

14 DECEMBER 2020 • By Faraj Bayrakdar
Freedom is femininity: Faraj Bayrakdar
Weekly

Kuwait’s Alanoud Alsharekh, Feminist Groundbreaker

6 DECEMBER 2020 • By Nada Ghosn
Kuwait’s Alanoud Alsharekh, Feminist Groundbreaker
World Picks

World Art, Music & Zoom Beat the Pandemic Blues

28 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By Malu Halasa
World Art, Music & Zoom Beat the Pandemic Blues
World Picks

Interlink Proposes 4 New Arab Novels

22 SEPTEMBER 2020 • By TMR
Interlink Proposes 4 New Arab Novels

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