Tori et Lokita

In a land where you had dreamed of being free, of independence with your own autonomy, you find your shackled and confined, forced to break rules, committing crimes, with a state that will not give you liberty. Along with Tori you make do the best you can, adopted brother with whom you had made a plan, but the dealer has you trapped, the smugglers make you feel kidnapped, your money taken, you feel forsaken, abused, attacked.

Following the lives of two juvenile African immigrants who find themselves trapped in a cycle of despair and abuse. Joely Mbundu is outstanding as Lokita, as she desperately tries to make enough money to send home while taking care of Tori, who has agreed to act as her brother while she seeks permanent residency in Belgium.

Stories about immigrants is becoming more and more common in the cinema. It's sadly an ever growing topic. But a lot of these films with this premise come from either one story or a series of stories from one particular country.

This particular tale has great authenticity both in its plot and homemade style with its hand-held camerawork.

There are some tough sequences and all of that along with sound character development makes for a tense and dramatic second half. It was almost like watching a documentary.

A lot of it is thanks to the two strong performances of Joely Mbundu and Pablo Schils. Their connection and on-screen friendship felt very believable and natural.

There's a lot they are having to deal and it paints a very interesting picture on how immigrants in this part of the world are treated.

I could be picky and say that the ending does leave a few loose ends and some of the choices felt rushed. But I didn't think it was a major drawback as it still some tense sequences that had me totally gripped.

I was surprised that it's just less than 90 minutes long given the subject matter. But I think what we got gave us enough of a glimpse into this dark and tough world.

Our investment is thanks to the two leads who give off strong natural sympathy and put us on their side early on.

The content is tough at times and the documentary approach gave it the rawness to make it work.

Splendid but difficult, wonderful but heartbreaking this is an important and excellent film by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne written, directed and produced. It is not a happy film but it certainly thrilling and awful, it is surely 88 minutes of harrowing, anxiety. Tori and Lokita are 11 and 16 year old youngsters posing as brother and sister having to work in the drug cartel as she hopes she will eventually get a card so she can work. Obviously a couple of young and dispossessed Africans who had gone from home into Italy and then on to Belgium but nothing is easy. All the time it is fascinating and gripping while these two actors are so brilliant that we believe that is really happening.

The Dardenne brothers normally pick an acute topic, mainly a social one, then feed it with a story and they have never failed to very accurately reflect the reality we are living in bringing their message to our heads and our hearts and making us ruminate on lots of things.

This time, they opted for the topic of clandestine children smuggled to Europe, desperately trying to survive in the world they believe in. We can see to what extremes they are ready to go in order to stay here and we know this is no game and there is absolutely no way back.

Terrifyingly real, tragic, moving, eye-opening, brilliant.

Tori and Lokita broke my heart. The final minutes of this drama played with my heart so unabashedly I had to resort to crying. Thinking of kids in my family, thinking of a little boy and a girl in my family who are so close to my heart. The Dardenne Brothers do their thing again in building a story that speaks volumes of the current, tried times. In here, they narrate the story of a boy and an elder girl who are hoping for a better life together in Belgium as siblings having left Africa as refugees. Yet in the developed world, they face rampant bureaucracy, corruption, child labour, and abuse. By the end of it all - it's the same story we all know - I was devastated. I may never watch this film again.

(Watched at the 2022 International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) in Trivandrum.)