Aisha

As someone from Ireland this is an important movie. As someone who has lived abroad in China there were some things I could relate to. That feeling of being temporary, being defined by your country, constantly having to justify why you're there and being the minority. That on top of having to answer the same stupid questions. All these complaints are minor compared to how my country treats these asylum seekers. It's inhumane and disgusting to be trapped in this limbo where they say you have rights, but the smug people in control get to do whatever they want, move you, take you away from the life you're building even though want to work and contribute. These people flee from the threat of abuse, death, sexual exploitation. They have to escape quickly and the countries that take them in keep them waiting around for 6 years with limit freedom and ask why they don't have this imaginary paperwork that proves they went through these things. When refugees fled Germany and France during WW2 they weren't scrutinised like this and it makes no sense that you can't just live. There has to be a better system than this.

Letitia Wright owns this film as Aisha, an immigrant from Nigeria seeking refuge in Ireland. The actress appears in almost every frame and her performance is worthy of an Oscar nomination.

Her father has been killed and she and her mother raped by vicious loan sharks and she is shown navigating the asylum system in Ireland. A security guard at a shelter befriends her and the young woman is moved from place to place as she must attend hearing after hearing, reciting her terrible story to a long line of unsympathetic paper pushers. I am sure that it is pretty much the same here in ther United States.

I hope that Aisha will be Ireland's entry for an Academy Award.

"Aisha" (Letitia Wright) has been seeking asylum in Ireland for some while when she encounters and builds a friendship with the security guard at her hostel. He, "Conor" (John O'Connor) has a bit of baggage of his own, and the two find a certain comfort in supporting each other as she is moved to a rural caravan park where she must continue her quest for residency. There's no doubt that both Wright and O'Connor deliver decent efforts here, but somehow the underlying story left me rather underwhelmed. Why Ireland? Is it just the most porous part of the EU? There is little context given as to that choice, and so when her struggles against the bureaucracy become more difficult, I felt that whilst I empathised with her predicament, I couldn't quite see why this was an Irish problem? The presentation of her as an asylum seeker is largely predicated on the skills of Wright as an engaging actor, rather than of any depth to her characterisation that could enable a neutral to make the judgements the film is clearly steering us to make. It all has a certain degree of entitlement to it, and the writer and director needed to work much harder to present the audience with a legitimacy to the story, not just to rely on an assumption that the innate kindness and sympathy we ought to feel would be forthcoming. This needed much more development and balance - those doing immigration management jobs portrayed here are usually shown as uncaring and unfeeling in an almost lazy fashion - and that compromises the whole integrity of the story. The complexities of this scenario are over-simplified here, and I think an opportunity to raise awareness of this - on both sides - has been largely missed.

Frank Berry's Aisha is the superbly moving record of a Nigerian refugee's quiet fight for dignity in Ireland's inhumane Direct Provision system for asylum seekers. Thoroughly-researched but fictional, gently-paced but absorbing, Berry's affecting narrative is anchored by standout performances from Letitia Wright (The Silent Twins) and Josh O'Connor (Mothering Sunday). Haunted by forces they can't control, these two unlikely soulmates form an unexpectedly tender bond; by film's end, they embody a tragic authenticity reminiscent of Italian neorealism. Even though Irish writer/director Berry is known for socially conscious work (2014's I Used to Live Here and 2017's Michael Inside), Aisha is far more than an 'important' film bolstered by real-world injustice. Here, Berry gives us a life-shattering experience that makes the greatest global issue of the moment feel achingly personal.

In her role as Aisha, the devastatingly resilient Wright is caught in a cycle fueled by bureaucratic impotence akin to Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru or Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake. After the murder of her father and brother, she flees Nigeria for Ireland, hoping to earn enough there to help her mother join her-but her new home offers no safe haven. As one of countless forcibly displaced immigrants, she is thrust into a byzantine immigration system where hopes are dashed and destitution hovers. Her only ally is the heartbreakingly egoless Conor, an Irish security guard with a traumatic past of his own-and an accent so effective it warrants subtitles-who understands her pain. As viewers, we care deeply for both of them, and yearn for their relief-but Aisha never strays from its narrative just to ease our discomfort.

This film makes it hard to remember we're watching fiction. Tom Comerford's understated cinematography achieves lived-in naturalism: claustrophobic office, bus and hotel interiors feel like prison; austere landscapes of emerald braes would dazzle if not for their overwhelming evocation of loneliness. Ironically, this dedication to immersion is so effective that Daragh O'Toole's score feels sadly predictable. The music is bittersweet and remarkably varied (African drums stand out), but feels at odds with Berry's Kafkaesque realism; at its worst, the score tells us how to feel, an unwelcome reminder that we're watching a movie. Happily, Aisha's most powerful moments come wisely devoid of music, relying on sheer performance to deliver emotional gut-punches.

And what emotionally-charged performances they are. Wright's perceptive silences speak volumes: grace and resolve in the face of daily microaggressions and lifelong trauma. O'Connor's vulnerability gives Wright room to shine as an actor, and Aisha room to unmask. When she finally lets go, it's a lightning bolt straight into the viewer's heart. This life journey doesn't want to be a 'movie,' or even a 'film. By evading histrionics and melodrama, by leaving room for unvarnished honesty, Aisha occupies a world very close to our own fraught reality. Those who long for levity are missing the point: this is not meant to be a palatable experience, a flight of fancy; it's an intentionally suffocating, Sisyphean reality-check that barely scratches the surface of a terrible truth. Aisha joins a growing cadre of immigrant-driven post-neorealist cinema that demands empathy where it is not being offered in real life.

Reviewed on June 19th at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival - Spotlight Narrative section. 94 Mins.

I recommend this movie to all Irish residents. Also to anyone anywhere with no real or lived understanding of trauma and/or life circumstances that cause you to flee for your life or die in the process. It will be emotionally triggering and upsetting for those who are or have been through the asylum application process, yet I wanted to see it the first time I heard about it a week ago. I finally got to see it today in the cinema.

The journalists won't talk about this issue, nor will the TV industry, the state or even the Irish society, most of whom are unaware of these lives hidden away from mainstream society like the plague. So I wish to shout out to the world how PROUD I am of this socially conscious Irishman Frank Berry, who through the media of film, is tackling societal plagues such as the Irish prison system, the impact of suicides on Irish society and through 'Aisha', the treatment of traumatised people arriving on Irish shores and soil seeking asylum and refuge (not to be confused with Ukraine war refugees, who are being treated differently, probably because they are white and European).

Ireland needs a hundred thousand more social realists like Frank Berry to awaken people, especially the privileged, to rise above and beyond their own selves and create a compassionate and just society from lessons learned from the past.

To quote Frank Berry : "What I found really interesting was how this system speaks to our past. It's another oppressive system like the industrial schools. The last mother and baby home was, I think, closed down in 1995. And the first direct provision centre opened in 1999. There are conversations to be had about how these systems were developed for profit." - IrishTimes, 12Nov2022

Letitia Wright is an amazing actress capable of enormous emotional depth that she shows through her eyes, her silence, her voice, her muscle armouring and her movements. It was lovely to see Josh who played Prince Charles in The Crown, play the lead male role here nailing the Irish accent!

I will not say anymore on this movie except to watch it and if you (like fellow reviewer johnpaulmoloney-35109) are unable to empathise with what you see, then to try and find gratitude for your blessings in life lest life decides to put you through similar suffering or worse in the hopes of teaching you humility and compassion for other human beings, in this short life on earth.