Aki once said that he was-"the best filmmaker in the world, but I made the worst film". "The Other Side of Hope" is another minimalist and expressionless film, with a tragic story of refugees in a comedy shell.
The story is about the poor—the kind of people who fall to the bottom. They are so oppressed that they don't know it themselves. What happened later, they found silence, love, triumph, or death. Who says death is not a victory?
The movie begins with a gloomy, dirty beauty. A face emerged from a coal boat in the port of Helsinki. This face looked like Martin's face from the water in the iconic shot of Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Maybe this person will be a phoenix reborn from the ashes. This is Khaled, a refugee from Syria who failed to apply for asylum and escaped during repatriation.
Wikstrom is a tired middle-aged man with no direction in his life. Starting from packing a dilapidated suitcase, he ended his marriage blankly, sold the shirt wholesale business blankly, won a sum of money in a poker game blankly, and invested blankly. A backward small restaurant began a smooth transition in life.
The first time they met was when Wikstrom drove a classic car into Khaled at an intersection.
The second meeting of the two of them was at the trash can of Wikstrom's restaurant. It is in this restaurant that two people who do not know each other want to re-start their lives on the weird streets of Helsinki, where the story meets-hoping to start resurrection.
The film is flat and straightforward, and many scenes have a sense of ritual, including the breakup of the businessman and his wife, the salary asking of the restaurant staff, the performance of the rock band in the restaurant, and the sister Khaled hiding in the train and smuggling to Finland. Many of the conversations are funny and witty, never sensational but can make people feel bitter.
At the end of the story, Khaled found his sister, and his sister really came to Finland. Wikstrom also met his ex-wife, who said she stopped drinking and kept the wedding ring he threw away. However, Khaled was stabbed by the racist skinheads (these people were wearing LiberationArmyFinland coats), and then he came to the river by himself, leaning against the tree, and the dog in the restaurant came to him. After returning to the garage, Wikstrom found an empty warehouse, not knowing what he would do next. Is this hope? Is this warm? The movie ends with an open ending.
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