Semret

I expected to see an immigrant woman fighting for her rights and hopefully winning, as it says in the description. (There were no reviews to guide me.) In fact the hospital incident referred to there hardly features in the film and is never clearly resolved. Instead I found very familiar main themes: an immigrant damaged by abuse, apparently during her journey to Switzerland (it's never made clear) and friction between an over-protective mother and her adolescent daughter. Rather too familiar and there's nothing outstanding or different here. It's just OK rather than particularly good in any respect and the ending resolves nothing at all, which makes me wonder why they bothered.

One aspect I found particularly disappointing and needlessly pessimistic. The Eritrean mother wants to assimilate into Swiss society and urges this on her Swiss-born daughter who, for no clear reason, prefers the company of other Eritreans. "Look at me," daughter says. "How can I be a typical Swiss?" This presumably because her face is brown and never mind that everyone welcomes her, she has a white best friend and neither mother nor daughter ever faces prejudice of any kind. That hospital incident is the only negative and there is no suggestion this is due to the woman's race. Does this director really believe that the many immigrants entering Europe will fail to integrate even when they want to and when everyone accepts them? Does she see asylum seekers forever trapped in splinter-groups and ghettoes? - hardly the lesson of history. There's no particular reason to watch this and for that negative message alone, I would avoid it.