Cross­ing – first-look review

The last promise that Lia (Mzia Arab­u­li) made to her sis­ter before her death was that she would reunite with her niece, Tekla, after many years of estrange­ment. After glean­ing from an old stu­dent that Tekla has left Geor­gia for neigh­bour­ing Turkey, Lia makes plans for a long jour­ney to Istan­bul. Sens­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get away from his bul­ly­ing half-broth­er and forge his path in a new coun­try, cheeky chap­pie Achi (Lucas Kanka­va) begs Lia to let him come along for the ride, claim­ing he knows where her niece might be stay­ing. A reluc­tant Lia per­mits Achi to accom­pa­ny her, and togeth­er they set off on Tekla’s trail.

Mean­while, in Istan­bul, Evrim (Deniz Duman­lı) is in the final stages of secur­ing a new ID which affirms her female iden­ti­ty. A lawyer for an NGO which fights for trans rights, she’s a tough, street-smart woman who keeps a close eye on her trans sis­ters as well as the tear­away tykes in her local neigh­bour­hood – a beat­en-up area of the city that offers both refuge for the trans com­mu­ni­ty and trou­ble in the form of police scruti­ny. Fate will bring these three togeth­er as Lia and Achi comb the city, as Lev­an Akin’s third fea­ture cel­e­brates the vibrant beau­ty of Istanbul’s trans community.

Fol­low­ing his break­out dra­ma And Then We Danced, Akin now immers­es the audi­ence in the bustling Turk­ish cap­i­tal, from its live­ly nightlife to the famous street cats prowl­ing in and out of frames at will. Details about the trio of cen­tral char­ac­ters emerge slow­ly but sure­ly, cre­at­ing bright por­traits of peo­ple who are flawed but try­ing to learn from their mis­takes all the time. As in his pre­vi­ous films, Akin doesn’t set­tle for the unre­al­is­tic com­fort of easy answers and hap­py end­ings, chal­leng­ing his char­ac­ters to con­front their pasts. While the film does feel a lit­tle cliched in its odd cou­ple premise, the ten­der­ness and grace with which Akin tells this sto­ry coun­ter­bal­ance this, and Cross­ing has a bright sense of humour which cuts through some of the ten­sion inher­ent in a cul­ture clash narrative.

The three cen­tral per­for­mances work well togeth­er, with Mzia Arab­u­li por­tray­ing Lia as a woman strug­gling with the weight of per­son­al and famil­ial regret, while Lucas Kanka­va presents the lov­able rogue Achi as cock­sure but ulti­mate­ly car­ing. Mean­while, Evrim is an empow­ered woman with a clear idea of the life she wants to live. She’s kin­da and com­pas­sion­ate to those who need her help, with a steely deter­mi­na­tion even in the face of dis­crim­i­na­tion and med­ical bureau­cra­cy. In one mov­ing scene, she fills out paper­work at a hos­pi­tal, only to be inter­rupt­ed by a curi­ous stray cat. Evrim sets her paper­work aside and allows the ani­mal to climb into her lap for a fuss. It’s a word­less indi­ca­tion of where Evrim’s pri­or­i­ties lie, and how the film encour­ages gen­tle­ness and understanding.

Sweet with­out being cloy­ing, it’s a love let­ter to the com­mon­al­i­ties between Geor­gian and Turk­ish cul­ture; one that encour­ages empa­thy and reminds us it’s nev­er too late to change for the better.