Tori et Lokita

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.

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.

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.)

This movie is really worth watching if you like the Dardenne brothers work. I am pleased to see that after all those years they are still efficient, motivated, that they have lost nothing of their talent, their wish to denounce social injustice and human behavior in general. They are genuinely the greatest specialists of this kind of social issues, the equivalent of Ken Loach if you prefer. This story is so compelling, moving, but cruel, painful, to watch, especially after the end. It belongs to their best work, but each of their film belongs to their best too.... I am ready to continue to wait for each of their films.