Mater Dolorosa: "Vogter" (Sons, Denmark/Sweden) and" Who Do I Belong To" (Tunisia/France/Canada/Norway/Qatar/Saudi Arabia)

Once again in the 2024 Berlinale, two very different films in competition find themselves in unexpected conversation. In this case the subject is motherhood, violence and trauma in shaping relationships within the family and the larger world.  Vogter (Sons), a Danish-Swedish production directed by Gustav Möller, and Where Do I Belong To, directed by Tunisian Canadian Meryam Joobeur, with public and private funding from Tunisia, France, Canada, Norway, Qatar and Saudi Arabia (the combination of countries in today political cauldron deserves more than a passing observation) share more than portraits of strong mothers and Jungian archetypes.

Considering Manny Farber’s observation that “a film transmits the DNA of its time”, this Scandinavian psychological thriller and the Arabic-language family drama about the impact of Islamic terrorism are films that capture the zeitgeist, revealing perhaps more than they would like to.  Both focus on violence and trauma, not from the perspective of those engaging in it brutally, Orc-style (graphically shown on screen) but through the lens of mothers of now grown men that have gone to the dark side. The power of these works, I think, comes precisely from this deliberate choice of perspective. If we had been taken inside the mind of an unhinged criminal or a brainwashed ISIS militant, our rejection would have been instinctive. Here, the viewers walk in the shoes of the mothers: one, Eva, an emotionally-controlled prison guard (Sidse Babett Knudsen) in Denmark; the other, Aicha, an alert peasant woman in Tunisia (Salha Nasraoui). The women are forced to confront the spiritual and family wreckage caused by offsprings for whom there may be no path of redemption.  Both actresses give terrific performances, where closeups and subtle gestures rather than words carry the weight of their emotional journeys.
 

Tunisian-French director
Maryem Joobeur,
press conference 

Unlike the four films reviewed in the previous post, hinging on dialogue to sculpt the characters, Vogter and Who Do I Belong To (no question mark at the end of the title) relie on a narrative dependent on the progression of time– when and how they discover elements of the puzzle structures the dramatic tension that climaxes in acts of great violence. When Eva discovers that a new inmate in the high security section is the murderer of her son, she plots a revenge worthy of Lady Macbeth; Aicha is intent of finding out what exactly happened to her son Mehdi, recruited by ISIS in Syria, who has come back home catatonic, with a mysterious, burqa-clad pregnant wife. These quests for understanding are solved differently considering the conventions of the thriller and the drama, but also with the clever trick director Meryam Joobeur, also the screenwriter, plays on an audience expecting a realistic plot.  In the case of Vogter, the viewer is increasingly jolted by the cat-and-mouse game played by the criminal, a Silence of the Lambs creature.
 

Director Gustav Möller and
actress Sidse  Babe Knudsen

Visually, both women function as a Mater Dolorosa facing the death of their sons; they are not presented as victims of patriarchal societies or pawns in an archaic worldview. They play the hand they are dealt and, in their struggle, they learn hard lessons.  There are some people beyond rehabilitation, Eva’s superior notes in Vogter; and a mother’s boundless love and forgiveness cannot wash the guilt of the son’s barbarism. In front of these grieving women, the men literally and metaphorically jump into the void.
 

Salha Nasraoui as Aicha

Remarkable in both cases is the use of music to depict interior states and the chaos of an external world, once the protagonists have seen it shattered.  The locations where the action takes place become integrated to the plot.  Maryem Joobeur had used her Tunisian location - and two of the non-professional actors - in her Academy nominated short, Motherhood (2018), from which this film expanded.   The Danish prison functions both as realist location and a space of metaphorical confinement for Eva.
 

The clear-eyed depiction of ISIS, the Salafi organization of Jihadistst founder of a brutal quasi-state caliphate in parts of Iraq and Siria in 2013, is perhaps the most notable aspect of Who Do I Belong To.  And more so now since the Hamas invasion of Israel in October of 2023. Aicha’s husband views ISIS what the terrorist organization is,  training its recruits to rape and decapitate infidels". The film’s climax hinges precisely on these two actions. It a scene hard to watch, and one that contains the clue to fully understand the origin of the son’s pregnant wife.
 
The films had their international premieres at the Berlinale, and in the press conferences not many details were given about their release and international distribution.  Prima facie, they may not seem to be a good fit for platforms that look for lighter or more entertaining fare.  The festival route is assured, though, and one would hope these titles would then find a large, receptive audience.