Leave to Remain

Leave To Remain is an important film about young asylum seekers who have arrived in the UK by themselves. Trying to navigate a confusing system with the UK Home Office whilst struggling with the daily problems of being a teenagers, Bruce Goodison has brought together a range of intimate stories in his script. I was impressed by the talent of the young cast, many who hadn't acted before and were taking on a big subject that required emotional depth.

Huge congratulations must also be given to Alt-J who provided a haunting score for this film.

A must see for all young people to learn more about what the asylum process is and the kinds of things that children have experienced in other countries that leads them to the UK. Would encourage schools and Universities to go and watch the film.

How many refugee crises can you think of? Probably the single longest running refugee crisis at the time of writing, sort of, is the Tibetan one, which was brought about by the Chinese in 1959. We can't talk about it these days though, as it would annoy the Chinese, to whom we have to cosy up for economic reasons. These things are, of course, fluid over time, but in the wake of "Leave to Remain" being made, Donbass Ukrainians have been fleeing into Russia; Burmese Muslims have been doing so into Bangladesh, and the South Sudanese into both Kenya and Uganda. But we can't talk about these either: we backed Petro Poroshenko and Aung San Suu Kyi, so to lambast them would be to admit error, while the sum-total of Britain alone pouring millions of pounds into the nation of Sudan between 1991 and 2012 has been to see it split into two and then be ravaged by War. Some investment.

Though desperately sad, I've never thought it too much of a calamity if a refugee were to find themselves in a country that neighbours their own. Decades ago, Tibetans, the Dalai Lama included, were able to find a degree of solace in India, into which they fled, for the reason India allowed them to live as they would be doing in Tibet anyway. Similar connotations can be made with South Sudanese Christians finding solace in Kenya; Burmese Muslims in Bangladesh and Russophile Ukrainians in Russia.

The issue of refugees; asylum seekers and immigration is a soft one in the modern West - the centre Right need them for economic reasons, pertaining to jobs markets and the hiking of house prices, whereas everybody else need them so that they may construct their much-desired one-world Utopia. In 2015, thousands of Syrians fled into Europe due to a war brought about by a lack of democratic transparency; the lucrative business of the arms manufacturing sector and the troublesome religion of Islam, which induces problematic offshoot belief-systems such as Salifism.

Syria ended up on everyone's lips because it wasn't our fault - the media, setting the agenda as always, chose to heavily emphasise this particular plight rather than the aforementioned examples. Germany took the bulk, then a Referendum in Britain on the European Union took place in 2016 - a preeminent issue, of which, was immigration, which appeared to lose. Ironically, the two options in the referendum were "Leave" and "Remain".

Which, to some extent, brings us to "Leave to Remain", an unexciting depiction of the trials and tribulations of refugees; asylum-seekers and one or two other things besides who have found themselves living in the London borough of Croydon. The focus of our attention are Zizidi, a young black girl from Guinea who has already had three children and has escaped an abusive husband, and the pairing of Abdul and Omar - a teenager and a much younger boy from Afghanistan. It is unexplained why Abdul and Omar are in England - a war was fought in 2001 to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban and render it more hospitable. Afghanistan has its own cricket team; its own presidential elections. If, as a Home Office employee establishes in the film, there are safe Afghan providences, why are they not there?

Times are tough. Everybody crams into a small terrace house - the weather outside is awful, stress comes with not knowing the results of your Home Office plea. There is a language barrier. The annual festivities of the natives are strange and alienating - fireworks sound like explosions and war. Conflict and narrative in the film are few and far between: Omar and Abdul do not get along, almost as if there is something between them from Afghanistan; one of them obtains a local floozy for a girlfriend; the housemates take a fieldtrip to the countryside; school is a chore... There is a feeling of realism, but it is synthetic - only made to feel more prominent by the fact the cases are based on real ones and the knowledge that immigration is such a burning issue.

Several things brew in "Leave to Remain", each trying to outdo one another. Besides anything else, the film is, obviously, being made in an age of bleeding-heart liberalism, where emotion trumps reason; where altruism, irrespective of the substance of an actual issue, comes first; where gesture, not ideology, is rewarded with votes and kudos. There are few places where this is more demonstrable than in the arts and culture industries, particularly independent film-making - the sort which would have produced this film. What is more, "Leave to Remain" is in-part funded by the BBC, which is undoubtedly stacked to the rafters by people who fit this bill but are not allowed to show it.

Consequently, the film jostles with its own outlook by trying to remain impartial, and this results in both an imbalanced tone and film-watching experience: we're told to come away from the film remembering that not all refugees are genuine and that we should be sceptical, but that the United Kingdom should welcome the oppressed anyway. Soppy 'Kumbaya' guitar music greets us over the opening credits, as a caption mournfully exclaims that nine out of ten refugees are, *sniff*, deported, and Home Office employees are suited; grey and anonymous (the camera composition cuts them off at the neck). What also transpires, however, is the notion that weak, self-loathing liberal internationalists, who bathe themselves in diversity, are contemptible enough to pervert the course of justice and lie over a refugee's story.

I would not necessarily advise anybody to purposely avoid the film, but it feels a little underdone - there is probably a really cracking film looking at much of the above material and more to be made, but I don't quite think this is it.