CANNES 2021: Europa
CANNES 2021Haider Rashid's Europa is a frantic and harrowing portrait into the depths of immigration. Following Kamal for three days and three nights in the wilderness of Bulgaria, Rashid's film is a fascinating albeit heartbreaking portrayal of survival.
On the surface, Rashid's Europa would seem like a quick and easily digestible seventy-five-minute feature. Its pacing is undoubtedly one of the film's highlights. Not only in terms of being accessible concerning the film’s quite hard-hitting plot but in showcasing the frantic nature of proceedings in the eye of the character.
The audience thinks, feels, and traverses through this three-day survival in the exact same manner as Kamal. Living and breathing the intensity and frantic energy of not knowing if the next move made is the last on this earth. The energy and tension are palpable, and it is not all nervous vehemence either. Haider Rashid's film steps over the line and shows horror and torment in complex and often brutal moments that set a precedent. Nevertheless, again, the director never oversteps the line in vulgarity. It never feels conscious of being provided in pure shock value but conveyed in authetisicism.
Undoubtedly, said themes and energy are personified by the exhilarating from Adam Ali (Kamal). A performance that crafts such intensity and atmospheric performance beautifully blends both internal and external depth in something short of astounding. It would be a slight understatement to suggest this is a seventy-five-minute anxiety attack.
This is a ferocious film is an attack on all the senses but what makes this thematic work and click is the superb cinematography on offer from Jacopo Maria Caramella – constantly utilising a handheld homemade aesthetic and considerable use of the extreme close-up crafts an often claustrophobic and intensified atmosphere. It is inescapable; much like Kamal's plight for survival, it intertwines meta-narrative forms for the character and audience to become one. Often, it works too effectively and having to pierce through the creases of hands in front of the screen is the only way to go.
Haider Rashid's Europa is a thrilling and exhilarating experience. It is a dark and often harrowing momentous ordeal to sit through but one that showcases the perils and merit of this type of circumstance as well as the world that strangles around it. With a sleek and fiery running time, it is a feature that manages to fit a monumentous amount of gravity and ordeal, fitting, of course, with a fabulous central performance.
