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.

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' (Luc and Jean-Pierre) latest is another in their generally low key, but precisely well-observed tales. Adolescent Tori (Pablo Schils) and his older sister Lokita (Joely Mbundu) are African immigrants in Belgium who are fighting to remain in their new country together. Immigration officials are dubious of their claims with the elder woman being on particularly shaky ground.

The plot dynamics are, as is almost always the case with the Dardennes, less important than the day to day lives of the main characters. Tori and Lokita must not only deal with the government, but, also the prejudices of local law enforcement and citizenry, but, also an entire underground system which takes abusive advantage of their migrant status. It becomes an acutely painful reality that Tori and Lokita often are put in the position of breaking the law in order to remain "within" the law.

Schils and Mbundu have natural screen presences that transcend the dialogue. Their wills to survive shine through even if their characters may lack the ability to verbalize their struggle. Alban Ukaj is effective as a slimy local businessman who humiliates the immigrants even as he professes to be assisting them.

TORI AND LOKITA is a bit too brief to fully capture the totality of their lives, but, there's a humanity, and, for the Dardennes, even a bit of righteous anger that manages to make its points.

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.

Considering there is debut for both in main cast, Joely Mbundu and Pablo Schils, no doubt they gave top of performances. The chemistry between is so touchable and we can feel their natural bond through that acting. It is the picture how usually goes that process of adaptation of refugees in foreign territory, which does not favor them with good intentions. I didn't expect to see such a good movie, by that fact that I didn't have in my schedule at all to see it during one movie festival, but suddenly changed my mind and entered that cinema hall where it started to play. I wasn't wrong. If you decide to see it, you will follow a strong emotionally and at the end sad story, after watching it, it will stay in your memory.