Three Road Films

I have a preference for road films. My wanderlust can’t be satisfied by this busy work schedule, and films are the best places for me to escape to, if and only if just for those short two hours. I came across three wonderful but obscure road films this summer. It is a shame that they got so little media coverage, even if all of them were directed by renowned directors.

In July is Fatih Akin’s second feature after the success of his debut Kurz und Schemerzlos. He took a break and made this light-hearted romantic comedy before he went on to direct Head On, which won the Berlin Golden bear and was much darker and intense. The story follows a Hamburg teacher (handsome Moritz Bleibtreu) who falls in love with a Turkish beauty and decides to travel to Turkey by all kinds of transportation means, all in company of another girl Juli who tries to win his heart back. It is a well-worn genre with plenty of witty and humorous moments. It shows If you follow your heart, there will be great adventures waiting for you (beware of sexy East European temptress, corrupted customer officer, car theft etc etc).

Michael Winterbottom always has a political edge. After 24 hour Party people he took the project on smuggling of illegal immigrants. He and his production team chose two refugees from an Afghanistan camp in Pakistan and followed them through Iran, Turkey, Italy, France and finally to UK, often improvising the stories on the road. The end film is called "In This World". The central character, a charming and street-smart teenage kid named Jarmal, was a natural actor who brought the film to life. It was mostly shot by handheld camera, with plenty of jerky movements and occasional grainy shot, and it let us witness the entire smuggling itinerary, from bleak deserts to snow-capped mountains to containers and tunnels, from one language to another, from middle-east to west. The movies call on our sympathy of the illegal immigrants, of the great dangers they endured to look for a better life, and on thinking of the root causes of these human tragedies.

I cried a bucket load when I saw Humberto Solas’ Miel Para Oshun (Honey for Oshun). It was an equally sentimental journey for me since many of the scenes and plots reminded me of my own trip in Cuba. Solas created a melodrama in a documentary style, following an embittered Cuban exile returning to his island and looking for his own mother. Wounded and scarred in life, all these characters slowly discovered their common bond and shared identity in this incredible journey. I never heard about Solas before, but he has been a pivotal figure in the Latin cinema who experimented relentlessly over 50 years. In line with all other Latin American intellectuals, his works explored the Latin American identity and social justices with potent political messages. Honey for Oshun delivered such an emotional but optimistic redemption to the victims of history. It is a tear jerker, but it also makes us think.