Screenwriter and director Sudabeh Mortezai took a bit of a risk by choosing the name ‘Europa‘ for her latest film, and not only because this name has already been used. I found about ten feature films with this name on IMDB, plus numerous short films, series episodes or documentaries. In this Austrian film written and directed by a German filmmaker of Iranian origin, ‘Europa‘ implies a dose of ambiguity or, if you like, has multiple meanings. It is primarily the name of a corporation trying to expand into Albania, one of the least known and least understood Balkan countries. But the story could have taken place in any other country in the Balkans or in other parts of Eastern Europe that have come out of communism. ‘Europe’ should also mean a system of values and a way of life to which all the peoples of the continent aspire. The expansion of Europe, as an institution but especially as an idea, is uneven, incomplete and often accompanied by conflicts and suffering. The story in this film is an episode of this slow and contradictory evolution.
The main heroine of the film is a German professional, a woman who works for an international corporation called ‘Europa’. Beate is one of those professionals who spend months away from home. We know that she has a family and (at least) one child that she talks with on the Internet, in the evenings, in her moments of respite. The film captures her work in Albania, where with the help of a young assistant and a translator, she is tasked with convincing the inhabitants of a rural area to evacuate the land on which a former industrial structure, now abandoned, stands. The corporation wants to take control of the area, but without its inhabitants. Only towards the end, the viewers will learn something about the purpose of these activities. To reach the goal, any means are allowed. At the beginning, the inhabitants are offered conditions that seem hard to refuse: generous compensation, resettlement aid, scholarships for the children who are going to study, donations for the dominant religious cult in those places. And yet, a few of them do not accept to leave the places where they were born and always lived, the houses and the graves of their parents and ancestors, the only way of life they knew. The story of the film focuses on the conflict between Beate as a representative of the corporation and one of these peasants and his family. When the means of persuasion through co-interest seem to fail, pressure and threats begin. The conflict threatens to turn violent.
The part that I liked the most in the film is the one that presents the meeting, which at times comes to a confrontation, between the two cultures and ways of seeing the world – the local culture with its traditional economy, with its religion and family relations, with the hospitality but also the mistrust towards foreigners tailored by history, and the ‘Western’ culture based on interests and the belief in a progress that must be imposed if it is not accepted. Director Sudabeh Mortezai comes from the world of documentary, and this is visible in a good way. Not only the setting in which the action takes place seems unpolluted, but also the scenes that meet the representatives of the two worlds have authenticity and even humor. The use of non-professional actors and of spontaneous dialogue without the constraint of a script dictating their words contributes to this. I must also mention the name of the actor who plays the lead role of the Albanian farmer – Jetnor Gorezi. The only professional actors are from the ‘western’ part of the cast, but here too the choice of the German actress Lilith Stangenberg for the role of Beate was, I think, excellent. For much of the film, viewers will wonder what she really feels, when is she being honest, and how aware she is that she, too, is being manipulated. Ambiguity, I think, is more appropriate than the categorization, too explicit in my opinion, of the characters. In the end, the continent of Europe will have to include them all. Ambitious political cinema, partially successful.