Love Child

A weep­ing man fran­ti­cal­ly packs a suit­case, say­ing in Far­si, ​“I not sure tomor­row I will be dead or alive”. We then cut to his euphor­ic arrival in Turkey, where he is now accom­pa­nied by a woman and a young boy, all three claim­ing asy­lum. Fol­low­ing var­i­ous long-form inter­views with these peo­ple, it remains unclear who, or what, they are run­ning from until the woman, Leila, then grim­ly lays out their back story.

Eva Mulvad’s Love Child is a doc­u­men­tary which attempts to chron­i­cle this strange sit­u­a­tion. Trapped in a vio­lent­ly abu­sive mar­riage in Iran, Leila fell in love with Sahand, and their son Mani was born of the affair. Her abu­sive hus­band assumed pater­ni­ty but became increas­ing­ly hos­tile and so she had to flee with her son and lover.

The pun­ish­ment for adul­tery in Iran is pub­lic exe­cu­tion so there is no prospect of return. Sahand is acute­ly aware of the stakes, hav­ing seen a woman pub­licly stoned to death. His eyes glaze over as he rec­ol­lects the hor­rors he wit­nessed, ​“I saw a woman being stoned. That was the most vio­lent of all. It’s not like watch­ing a movie. I watched her die right in front of me”.

The film fol­lows the trio from 2012 to 2018, as they set­tle in Turkey and hope to get to Amer­i­ca. Mani is a sweet but trou­bled child, not only uproot­ed but also com­ing to terms with his ​“uncle” now being his father. Over the years he flour­ish­es along­side his lov­ing par­ents, who restart their careers and build con­nec­tions, but the spec­tre of being sent back puts a strain on their hap­py family.

Moments of joy are inter­spersed with troughs of guilt and survivor’s remorse. Mul­vad nev­er lets us for­get what is at stake. In many respects this is a con­ven­tion­al doc­u­men­tary, struc­tured chrono­log­i­cal­ly with inter­views at reg­u­lar inter­vals which pro­vide back­ground detail, but the cap­ti­vat­ing sub­jects make for grip­ping view­ing. It is a heart­break­ing look at lives endan­gered by the cru­el bureau­cra­cy of the refugee crisis.