By Last Caress.

Exodus, the latest documentary by Elias Matar, documents the harrowing journey of Syrian refugees as they cross the Aegean Sea from Turkey into Greece. Over three thousand refugees attempt this treacherous crossing everyday, seeking asylum in Western Europe. It’s a life and death gamble that they are willing to take for a chance at a new life away from their war-torn homeland.

Matar begins Exodus by taking a nine-hour ferry ride east from Athens to the Greek island of Chios, which lies less than 5 miles from the Turkish mainland. Chios only has a population of 55,000 but, in 2015, almost twice as many refugees landed on the island, trying to flee the horrors of the war in Syria. And more are arriving, by the boatload. Matar, who was born in the USA but raised largely in Damascus and who also shot the similarly-themed documentary Flight of the Refugees early last year concerning asylum seekers trying to reach Germany, is not only filming the arrival of these refugees but is actively taking part in the humanitarian effort to help them land their boats and dinghies safely before helping them onto the next leg of their journeys. This isn’t easy since, although the aid workers are sure of where the refugees have set sail (Çeşme, on the westernmost tip of Turkey), they can’t be entirely sure of exactly where along Chios’ coast the boats are going to land. It could be in the day, but it’s more likely to be in the cover of darkness. This tiny stretch of the Aegean Sea might be as flat as a billiard table as the refugees cross, but it might also drown every one of them. And when they land on Chios, many of the refugees are terrified, and run. It isn’t just refugees of the Syrian war risking their lives by taking this relatively short but perilous crossing, either. The boats are also full of Afghanis trying to escape the conflict in their country between the Islamic Republic and the Taliban.

Exodus is a sobering documentary but it’s also incredibly humanising and, taking a mere seventy minutes of our time, it’s one we should all maybe try to see, if we can. Recommended.

flightoftherefugees.com/exodus

By Marti Dols Roca.

London 1940, while Hitler’s Luftwaffe bombs the British capital, Catrin, an unknown screenwriter, and a cast and crew formed by old stars and what’s left of the non recruited youth, unite to finish a film with the aim of reinforcing England’s moral and trying to convince the U.S to join the war.

Women’s rights, war, ageing in the show business, filmmaking and politics. Not bad, right? All watered by touches of humor, a romantic subplot and a fair amount of historical rigor.

The truth is that Gemma Arterton excels in her role, only shadowed by an hilarious Bill Nighy who magnificently monopolizes the comedic nature of the film while giving a couple of brushstrokes on quite serious matters. The movie offers an insight of the crazy and exhausting world of big studio productions remembering us once more the amount of decisions that provoke major changes in the final product taken purely by chance, necessity or accidents; especially during wartime, of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWzfl8W_STQ

As it usually happens with British productions that touch these (very British) issues, the balance between seriousness and lightness is absolutely spot on; except, spoiler alert, for one big turning point happening by the end of the film. Just as the characters in the movie try to, the actual writers seem to look for a spectacular twist that will push the drama even further and make the whole ending more powerful. In my opinion, that slightly kills the honest nature of the film. As I was saying, the movie doesn’t try to be über serious or deep. It’s as light as the story demands: portraying very serious matters in a smart and simple way.

The moment I’m talking about doesn’t really change the arc of the movie (it does change the future of its protagonist, but it doesn’t affect the actual question the movie wants to answer); consequently, it’s pretty unnecessary and feels a bit farfetched. As the characters wrongly do in the movie, they try to add “flavor” to the story when the important elements are already there, hidden in details and nuances. But we can blame the producers in that one, can’t we?

After all, Their Finest tells a story we have heard before, with characters and storylines we know. But, hey, we love to hear this story. So let us enjoy it one more time!

By Marti Dols Roca.

City of Tiny Lights is a London underworld crime thriller; nothing new under the sun until this point. Based on the novel with the same name, Pete Travis’ film has everything a piece of this genre needs to have: a protagonist whose moral compass and financial situation are inversely proportional; a main plot full of twists; a subplot related to the main character’s past that will end up playing a major role in the outcome; and a series of deep enough secondary characters: the funny and sad father, the pretty and shady hooker, the dodgy sidekick and the successful childhood friend who hides something.

The movie works: it delivers a believable and interesting story, it’s almost perfect in terms of structure and it has the precise amount of ideological brushstrokes to makes us reflect on a couple of current and delicate matters (will come back to that). The thing is, it’s so perfect in terms of genre and story canons, it occasionally feels like the same old mould filled with a fairly new substance. As an example: it even ends with the main guy sitting on an ambulance at dawn, holding a gauze to his wounded forehead, nodding his appreciation to the police officer passing by and silently observing how the bad guys are being taken in. We all kind of know that image, don’t we?

That being said, if you were looking for an original, fresh, new and mind-blowing postmodern take on the thriller genre go see another movie. On the other hand, if you have a taste for real flavored stories, in real flavored settings with real flavored characters that use an old but functional frame in order to be told, this may be a movie you’ll enjoy. Moreover, and in the humble opinion of the writer of this article, one of the most interesting things of this film is a quite nice little lesson about stereotypes and rushed moral judgments on certain religions that is absolutely necessary in the present day and time. As I was saying, there are certain bits of the story that may be predictable; but sadly, that would be due to how terribly predictable human nature sometimes is, i.e. follow the money, the suits and the powerful instead of the young, shaved, bearded and dark-skinned if you want to get to the core of the problem.

So, again, if you were looking for an original, fresh, new and mind-blowing postmodern take on the thriller genre go see another movie. And please let me know the title because I would like to see it too 😉