Brenda Blethyn and Sotigui Kouyate star in London River.Multiculturalism matters
By John Esther
From the opening moments of this 20/20, World Cinema selection you know which way London River flows. Protestant Elisabeth (Brenda Blethyn) listens to a sermon about loving your neighbor while Muslim Ousmane (Sotigui Kouyate) prays toward Mecca in solitude. Both are resigned to their fates, existing for the sake of existing.
On July 7, 2005, terrorists strike several veins of transport, killing dozens and sending both believers into panic mode. Where are there children? Elisabeth leaves Guernsey (a Channel Island) while Ousame leaves a forest in France, both heading to London. She is looking for her daughter, Jane, while he is looking for his son, Ali.
Because of the connection between Ali and Jane, Elisabeth and Ousmane continually encounter each other. She is full of mistrust of the Muslim; he is full of regret for leaving Ali when his son was 6. Although she raised her Jane and he did not raise his Ali, neither parent really knows her or his child. She is bedazzled by her daughter's choices while he fears for the worst with his son.
Directed and co-written by Rachid Bouchareb, London River packs quite a bit of drama for a 90-minute film. It is anyone's guess whether the children are still alive. Both parents must go through the horrors of visiting hospitals and morgues in the chance his or her child was a victim of the attacks. Do they really want to find them? Under these circumstances, ignorance may be bliss compared to knowledge.
Elizabeth is plenty ignorant to begin with, considering her husband a hero in "the war" of the Falkland Islands in 1982 (the undeclared war lasted 72 days and claimed an estimated 1000 casualties) and oblivious to people speaking Arabic ("Who speaks Arabic," she asks?), she is one of those bourgeois Britain's the other classes love to hate. At least she speaks French; but, then again, everybody (cop, butcher, Imam) speaks French in this film so Ousame does not have to try speaking English. Phew!
Thanks to the tremendous performances of Blethyn and Kouyate the drama has a greater impact. For what is at stake here, as Armand Amar's score aurally illustrates, is the wish by fanatics to kill the narrative of modernist multiculturalism and how terrorism -- in the long run, not the short -- assures that people from different cultures will eventually have a greater understanding of each other. After all, grief, guilt, and guile are universal languages and nobody can blow that away. (Recommended)
(London River screens Oct. 30, 7 p.m., at Mann Chinese Theater 1, 6801 Hollywood Blvd. For more information: 866/AFI-FEST; www.afi.com.)
