A young German-Iranian worker befriends two siblings facing deportation in an urgent, uncompromising tale of modern Europe
The winner of the
Berlin film festival’s Teddy award for best queer-themed film begins as shuffling character study, then broadens out to resemble Jules et Jim or The Dreamers yanked brusquely into an urgent multicultural present. Its focal point is Parvis (Benjamin Radjaipour), a gay twentysomething German of Iranian descent obliged to assume greater responsibility after community service carries him into a refugee shelter; there he gravitates towards Amon (Eidin Jalali) and Banafshe (Banafshe Hourmazdi), Iranian siblings facing imminent deportation.
Any trace of piousness in the setup is dispelled by an early, frenzied burst of man-on-man face-sitting: from the off, it’s a film caught between worlds, juggling Parvis’s casual hook-ups with his growing bond to contemporaries living more precariously. Presented in Academy ratio, with Andrea Arnold-like dreamy interludes, Faraz Shariat’s debut is quietly shrewd about checking its characters’ privilege. Dubbed an ausländer (foreigner) and living at home with uncomprehending parents, Parvis may think he has it bad, but he also has the paperwork allowing him to stay out at night. His soured fling with an older Caucasian contrasts with a scene in which Banafshe fends off an overreaching caseworker; the condescension and exploitation in play doesn’t appear wildly different.