The Oth­er Side of Hope

This might just be the most drol­ly poet­ic response to what has been dubbed the ​‘refugee cri­sis’ by jour­nal­ists and polit­i­cal wags, and it comes as lit­tle sur­prise that Finland’s sar­don­ic sage, Aki Kaurismäki, is the man behind the tiller. The Oth­er Side of Hope traces the inter­sect­ing lives of two men: one a Syr­i­an migrant named Khalid (Sher­wan Haji) seek­ing tem­po­rary asy­lum in Helsin­ki; the oth­er an impas­sive, old­er Finnish gen­tle­man named Wikström (Sakari Kuos­ma­n­en) who ditch­es his alco­holic wife to open a low rent bar-restaurant.

And though it’s nev­er artic­u­lat­ed with the kind lapel-shak­ing rage that most film­mak­ers deal­ing with this sub­ject might lean on, the film lets out a silent scream dur­ing a time of unprece­dent­ed geopo­lit­i­cal anx­i­ety, where gov­ern­ments are fail­ing to demon­strate basic empa­thy towards those most in need. But most of this is just a beau­ti­ful cel­e­bra­tion of cul­tur­al diver­si­ty. One of its key mes­sages is, nev­er let a Finn try and make you sushi.

The sad-eyed Khalid emerges from a barge, hav­ing stowed away in the giant coal stores. It ini­tial­ly appears an absurd and uncom­fort­able way to trav­el, but the more of the hero’s sad sto­ry comes to light, the more it becomes shock­ing­ly evi­dent that he has prob­a­bly had to endure much worse. He is on a search for his sis­ter, who was snatched away from him dur­ing one of their many, per­ilous Euro­pean bor­der cross­ings. He ded­i­cates his life to recon­nect­ing with her.

While Khalid rep­re­sents the dis­placed migrant humbly search­ing for safe­ty in for­eign climes, Wikström is the well-heeled dream­er who thinks noth­ing of tak­ing direct action (and a fair amount of risk) when it comes to get­ting a job done. It would be hard to describe him as a kind per­son, as his var­i­ous acts of altru­ism come as sub­jec­tive reac­tions to each new sit­u­a­tion. He extends char­i­ty to no one, but he works to improve the lives of those around him, know­ing that it will stoke his own sense of self worth.

In the way the actors intone lines with a stone face, or sel­dom dis­play their feel­ings through body lan­guage, Kaurismäki assures that the human body is so expres­sive (and the cam­era so sen­si­tive) that empa­thy will rise nat­u­ral­ly from the screen. For­mal­ly, the film is trimmed of all unnec­es­sary fat, and Kaurismäki, with his long-time part­ner in cin­e­mato­graph­ic crime, Timo Salmi­nen, use every shot to cap­ture a process. On the rare occa­sions that the cam­era moves a lit­tle fur­ther away from the sub­ject, the effect is one of sub­tle tran­scen­dence, such as when Wikström sits alone in his restau­rant, drink­ing whiskey as a giant shaft of dusty light scythes through the image.

Aside from its tren­chant polit­i­cal under­pin­nings, this is also a gor­geous ode to the pow­er of cin­e­ma itself, with var­i­ous pro­nounced nods to Jacques Tati, Yasu­jiro Ozu, Robert Bres­son, silent com­e­dy, 1940s noir and all man­ner of cinephile flot­sam and jet­sam. Old bushy geezers pile on the sound­track with soul­ful rock­a­bil­ly toe-tap­pers, and there’s an aside in which Wikström decides to embrace mod­ern trends and open a sushi restau­rant that might be the director’s sin­gle fun­ni­est sequence ever. In fact, the whole thing is a whim­si­cal joy from start to fin­ish, and Kaurismäki now proves to be an old hand when it comes to shift­ing on a dime between scenes of mad­ness and melancholia.