Austrian-Iranian director Sudabeh Mortezai’s Europa allows for no illusions about the inequalities and hypocrisies of modern-day Europe. Some lives are considered more valuable than others in a climate of turbo-charged capitalism where the marginalised are exploited, as mere lip service is paid to human rights by power brokers in parliament assembly halls.
Her first two features, Macondo (2014) and Joy (2018), dealt with immigrant experience in Vienna, the latter a particularly uncompromising depiction of the lack of options available to a trafficked Nigerian sex worker. Her third feature, screening in the Feature Competition at Sarajevo, revisits these concerns with a broad, structural focus on the pathways of shady “philanthropy.” Situated between a pitch-black, neo-colonial satire and a dystopian thriller about unscrupulous greed, this is a tonally elusive but politically trenchant and original oddity. Its title references the brutally acquisitive, arrogantly paternalistic corporation at its core, helmed by Beate (Lilith Stangenberg), a prim and pale Germanic executive. As Europa sinks its teeth into Albania, a stigmatised and economically challenged non-EU member state viewed as a resource that is there for the taking, the expansionist firm functions as a caustic symbol of the European Union and its failures.
“All communication is manipulation,” says Beate. Joined by her equally charmless assistant Lasse (Tobias Winter) and beleaguered interpreter, Albi (Mirando Sylari), she is on an extended business trip to the small Balkan nation, where she has been tasked with persuading local farmers to sign their properties over to Europa for large pay-outs. Smooth persuasion is her strategy, but she can barely disguise her smug superiority, as she dupes family patriarchs that she wants nothing more than to secure their children’s futures. She’s armed with the added carrot of lucrative university scholarships, couched as a means of empowering young Albanian women.
Jetnor (played with a stubborn, steady gaze by Jetnor Gorezi) is one dad who cannot be bought. His land, and the bees he keeps, were inherited from his father, who died of cancer from toxic chemical exposure after being forced into factory work by the state. Failing to convince Jetnor directly, Beate seeks influence through regeneration donations to the Islamic Sufi order Bektashi (he’s a devout follower), and via his more malleable daughter Besa (Steljona Kadillari), who wears a “Brooklyn” T-shirt and dreams of studying abroad. Her outward-looking hunger for opportunity has not yet been tainted by cynical realities. But Europa’s machinations to get landowners on side is merely for public relations optics, to minimise ugly fall-out. They will seize the land no matter what, having secured ownership deeds through a corrupt legal system.
Least credible is a schematic narrative strand where a group of European tourists, urban explorers who have trespassed on zoned off Europa territory, are locked up by armed guards. (In line with their respective nations’ EU fortunes, the Danish prisoner appeals to her Scandanavian privileges, while the Greek rebels.) Cue echoes of the refugee crisis, and control of movement.
The upmarket hotel with mood jazz for suited clientele where Beate and Lasse spend their downtime (she with yoga and family Zooms; he with a sex worker) is shot by D.P. Klemens Hufnagl as a space of impersonal globalisation and consumerist optimisation, in stark contrast to Albania’s verdant hills, sundrenched in long shots, where they are driven to negotiations. Folk sounds out there, tying the land to tradition. A stop-off at former communist regime bunkers, now in disrepair and used for sheep shelters, is a chance for their guide to voice another historical layer to the persecution of Albania’s landowners over decades of Enver Hoxha’s rule.
Scenes in which the insistent, abundant hospitality of Raki toasts and lamb dishes straight from the slaughter come up against the unbending stiffness of the visitors play for predictable but effective laughs, as beyond a culture clash, lies a basic deficit of respect. A consolatory solution was never to be. The whole film is essentially a flashback, setting out the backstory for a chaotic, dynamic cracker of an opening scene of confrontation, as a man on a moving car’s bonnet smashes a windscreen. There is no road to a harmonious Europe to be found here — despite whatever line the spokespeople of neo-imperialist power are eager to sell, as they frame ransacking as development.
Director, screenplay: Sudabeh Mortezai
Cast: Lilith Stangenberg, Jetnor Gorezi, Steljona Kadillari, Mirando Sylari, Tobias WinterProducers: Mehrdad Mortezai, Sudabeh Mortezai
Cinematography: Klemens Hufnagl
Editor: Julia Drack
Sound Design: Atanas Tcholakov
Set Design: Julia Libiseller
Costume Design: Carola Pizzini
Production companies: Fratella Filmproduktion GmbH (Austria), Good Chaos (UK), Film4 (UK)
Sales: Memento International
Venue: Sarajevo Film Festival (Feature Competition)
In Albanian, English, German
97 minutes
