Eden à l'Ouest

I admit that it was the director's name that made me choose this film from the selection of international films offered by Qantas in their on-board entertainment system on my flight home.

The initial sequence of illegal immigrants on a boat was haunting as they ripped their identification cards and threw them into the water. As authorities came to arrest them, we meet Elias who dove into the sea to escape. He was washed ashore on a nudist beach resort. And from then you know that things would turn for the ludicrous.

It is a cat and mouse game as Elias tries to find his was to Paris to search for a magician who told him to look for him there. On that flimsy premise, the movie became a road trip where Elias encounters and interacts with people who had various problems. Elias was always just the witness of events, but we never find out anything about his past. We do not even know from which country he came from! I kept on watching the film because I wanted to see how Elias would finally fare when he reaches Paris. However when he does meet the magician in Paris, the expected grand finale of Elias' exodus was nowhere to be seen. The crazy visual gimmick that Costa Gavras did on the Eiffel Tower in the ending even made the whole movie look stupid.

This tale of illegal migrants is masterfully told as a straight story of events along the road to Paris. In order to illustrate many facets of the illegal immigrant saga, the writers have gone out of their way to include many more events, mishaps, and adventures that could credibly happen to a single migrant. Some people may object to this, but it serves to make this a more universal picture of events that can overtake an exile.

The emphasis of the story-telling is not a political or social statement, it's a strikingly enjoyable film with excellent cinematography which nevertheless manages to raise many serious issues. It's a story of human adaptation to loss of home and lack of normal human contact.

The protagonist says little because he can hardly speak French or English. Language throughout the film is not very important as a result. The audience, like migrants themselves, sits through episodes in Arabic, Greek, French, German, and English.

Along this rootless journey, he strikes up relationships ambiguous relationships along the road, mainly warm and yet fleeting - particularly the toy-boy episode at the start. There are many little subtle moments in the film, each making powerful comments about human moral choices under duress.

Combining suspense, drama, and subtly thought provoking episodes, this is another lasting film from Costa Gavras.

The main character isn't only innocent and naive, but he also is portrayed as good natured as it gets. Now you could argue if that really is possible or if it really works story-wise. But you have to suspend your disbelief here early on. The movie is jumping from one scene to the next, changing many locations and therefor never really builds an emotional connection with the viewer. While the segments are nice and good, the whole experience isn't as good as the sum of it's parts.

It gets even more irritating, when almost every cliché get's played out in the story, letting the main character go through every possible roller-coaster ride an (illegal) immigrant can go through. Unfortunately it doesn't mix as well as one might think (pace and rhythm is all over the place and not in a good sense).

Elias, a young man of indefinite origin is one of the passengers of a rickety boat taking illegal immigrants to Europe. As a Coast Guard cutter approaches, all ditch their documents in the ocean and Elias tries to escape swimming. What follows is a sort of comedic Odyssey. He alights on an island that hosts de luxe tourists and befriends a magician that claims to work in the Lido of Paris and tells Elias to look him up if and when he gets to Paris. From then on, Paris is Elias' mythical objective. He manages to reach the European mainland and proceeds in his journey helped only by his wits, his good looks and his ability to run at dizzying speeds from the police. He has an indestructible good nature, and is helped by some strangers and exploited by others. His journey takes unexpected twists and turns, some very funny, and there is a sort of resolution at the end, perhaps only in Elias' mind.

This being a Costa-Gavras film, we expect (and get) some cutting social comment. The Eden of Paris is not the romantic city of tourist brochures. Squads of police in vans are everywhere, deploy in a few seconds and harass bystanders and passersby on the basis of their skin color or their dress. Jobs, if available, are transitory, exploitative and take advantage of immigrants being unable to seek legal help. And, good samaritans beware: a monstrous French law threatens up to five years in jail and/or a fine of 30,000 euros for "assisting an illegal immigrant". Paris stands out as symbol of Europe, the self appointed Cradle of Western Civilization facing a wave of immigration whose desperate last-chance character is a direct consequence of Europe's centuries long predatory practices and constant warmongering in Africa and elsewhere, the bombing and destruction of Libya as a functioning country being a textbook example,

There have been many recent movies on the plight of illegal immigrants in Europe. Perhaps this one is not up to the best in the genre, and perhaps it is not up to the best in Costa-Gavras filmography, but its comedic and dramatic components mesh well and make a harmonious whole well worth watching.

This is just the silliest movie ever made! The adventures of the illegal migrant are all so implausible and unreal. The main character stumbles through the movie like a mute, getting into all sorts of scrapes and sexual trysts. He spends a lot of time nude and uses sex to find a way out of everything. Oddly enough, he never gets a sexually transmitted disease despite having constant sex with random strangers. Most of the time, he plays the role like a 1920s silent movie star, and it wears thin because of the repetitiveness. Overall, it's just garbage and is a waste of time to watch, unless you are into nudity.