London River DVD Release

With the exception of Chris Morris, film makers seem to have passed over the opportunity to make films on the 7/7 London bombings, and judging by the plethora of 9/11 derivative films that have been released to generally terrible receptions, I have always been thankful for this.

To fictionalise a true life tragedy is a desperately risky manoeuvre but in the hands of French-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb, London River avoids the pitfalls Hollywood fell into projecting the 9/11 disaster on to the big screen. Instead, the film delivers a beautifully honest account, not of the event itself, but of those caught in the aftermath – namely the victim’s families.

Aside from brief excerpts of archive footage, London River resists the docu-drama categorisation to give a more human face to 7/7. Avoiding the too easy terrorist caricatures or dramatic reconstructions, it focuses on the lives of two seemingly unconnected people, Elizabeth (Brenda Blethyn) a Christian from Guernsey and Ousmane (Sotigui Kouyate) an African Muslim living in France who are both brought to London in search of their missing children following the bombings.

Removed from the safety of her farm in Guernsey, Elizabeth’s search brings her to Finsbury Park where she discovers her daughter has been living with a Muslim boy she met in Arabic class. To call her racist would perhaps be extreme but Elizabeth’s unease on the streets and her frantic declaration that ‘it’s crawling with Muslims!’ exemplifies the dangers of small town mentality, and the media induced xenophobia that can develop, especially when it comes to terrorism. Her ignorance is exacerbated when she meets the gentle Ousmane, an elderly dreadlocked African man whose son turns out to be her daughter’s boyfriend, to the point where she gets him arrested under suspicion that he has her daughter.

Ousmane’s powerfully silent presence on screen is riveting and rightfully earned him the Silver Bear Award for Best Actor at the 59^th Berlin International Film Festival where the film premiered. It is his strength and faith in humanity that brings Elizabeth around, gradually erasing her preconceptions and allowing their unlikely friendship to develop as they desperately piece together their children’s final days to see whether they may still be alive.

The film has a ghostly calm throughout, despite the fear and desperation of its protagonists, with minimal soundtrack and dialogue, something which is helpfully facilitated by the on screen and real-life language barrier between the characters. Bouchareb’s decision to bring an African and British actor (with minimal French skills) together provides an additional sense of realism to the characters as they try to understand each other linguistically but also in spite of their differing cultural views. They are outsiders in London but also from one another united by their common pain and loss which, unlike society, does not discriminate by ethnicity and religion.

While on a basic level, the plot is nothing particularly original, London River is an intelligent and moving account of the aftermath of 7/7, offering a thought provoking commentary on race, nationhood and community in a time of terror.

London River was released on DVD October 11, 2010.