Bleak images and occasional English
commentary ensure that the film’s message is crystal clear: breaking into
Europe can be a heartbreaking exercise in futility. (Review by Patrick Compton)
Europe
In Winter, directed by Polo Menaguez is part of the
Durban International Film Festival and will be showing again on Friday, July 26
at 16h30 at Suncoast 6.
One of the great things about film
festivals is that the variety of their content enables audiences to empathise
with many different human experiences. Polo Managuez’s documentary portrays the
grim plight of largely Afghan migrants waiting – seemingly in vain – for a
break in wintry Belgrade in Serbia.
We watch as the young male migrants subsist
in an old, abandoned railway station on the outskirts of Belgrade (and later in
a camp in northern Subotica) with almost no hope of being allowed to make
further progress towards the promised land, “Europe”, via Hungary.
In halting English, some of the migrants
explain that they’ve left their homeland because the Taliban have threatened
them and their families with death; others, from Syria, are fleeing the civil
war. All of them see Europe as their only hope of making a decent life for
themselves.
But their chances of making it seem bleak.
Fortress Europe has never seemed so unwelcoming to those on the wrong side of
the fence. In the freezing winter we watch them wait patiently in food queues
while strident voiceovers from Hungarian and Serbian politicians make it clear
they are not welcome in their countries. The police and vigilante groups will
make sure that refugees have a hard time of it. Meanwhile, the wannabe migrants
burn railway sleepers to keep warm, with the toxic fumes endangering their health.
It’s unfortunate that audiences wishing to
see this film will have to put up with long periods when the refugees speak in
their own language (Persian/Pashto/Syrian) with Spanish subtitles. There are no
English subtitles in this film, as claimed by the programme notes, and those
who don’t read Spanish will not be able to understand what is being said.
Having said that, the film is only 65
minutes long and the bleak images and occasional English commentary ensure that
the film’s message is crystal clear: breaking into Europe can be a
heartbreaking exercise in futility. - Patrick Compton
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