The Other Side of Hope
Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Talent: Sherwan Haji, Sakari Kuosmanen, Tommi Korpela, Ilkka Koivula, Janne Hyytiäinen
Released: 26th May
Topical, poignant and surprisingly funny, Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope is a fable about the Syrian refugee crisis. According to Kaurismäki, this will be his final film, and though it somewhat adds up to less than the sum of its parts, there is still plenty to like and admire in the story of Khaled (Haji), a young man who escapes war-torn Aleppo and eventually makes his way to Helsinki, where he ends up working for restaurant-owner Wikström (Kuosmanen). His new boss’ gruff and grisled exterior though hides a kind heart and together they set out to track down and smuggle into Finland the sister from whom Khaled was separated during his perilous journey.
However, before any of this happens, Khaled unsuccessfully goes through the soul-crushing process of seeking asylum, a Kafkaesque nightmare of grey detention centres and impassive bureaucratic functionaries, while Wikström, a former travelling salesman, is shown raising the money to buy the restaurant and then learning the ropes of the business.
Each plot-line is certainly compelling in its own right, but they intersect far too late on, nearly an hour into the 90-minute running time. This is a rare case where a film would have benefited from being a little longer, as its final third feels rushed and overly busy. Another problem arises from the fact that although Khaled’s side of the story is appropriately humourless, after meeting Wikström, he immediately gets caught up in the broad comedic shenanigans at the restaurant, which risks trivialising the horrific ordeal he has gone through, and Kaurismäki never quite manages to reconcile both tones into a cohesive whole.
On the other hand, considered solely on the basis of individual moments, the film hardly sets a foot wrong. Several scenes—such as Khaled’s account of digging out the bodies of his entire family from the rubble of their apartment, or the brisk, bored and efficient demeanour of the magistrate as he rejects Khaled’s asylum application and orders him deported back to Syria—pack one hell of an emotional wallop and leave the viewer filled with indignation, and even if the funny bits fit uneasily into the bigger picture, they are very funny indeed. The dialogue is delivered by the excellent cast in Kaurismäki’s signature deadpan style, which has clearly been an influence on The Lobster director Yorgos Lanthimos, but the startling thing is that while the humorous merits of this vocal quirk remain evident, when the words are spoken by Khaled, the same intonation sounds instead like a symptom of PTSD.
Music, as is always the case with Kaurismäki, plays an important part, and several live performances are shown in their entirety, becoming one of the few sources of solace for Khaled, himself a talented musician. Kaurismäki also excels in conveying just how foreboding a place like Helsinki would seem for someone in Khaled’s position, and there are a couple of genuinely terrifying encounters with fascist thugs.
Ultimately, though, what makes The Other Side of Hope worth watching, in spite of its shortcomings, is the filmmaker’s firm belief in basic human decency, conveyed entirely without sentiment and all the more powerfully for being his final artistic statement.
Words – Felipe Deakin
