Welcome (2009)
Directed by Philippe Lioret

Film Review

Director Philippe Lioret appears to have taken one or two leaves out of Ken Loach's book for his latest film, a grimly realist drama that is obviously intended to prick our collective conscience and provoke debate about what is fast becoming one of the most important social and moral issues of our time.   Whilst Welcome may lack Loach's political maturity and dark sense of irony, it is has something of the impact of his better films.  It is a film that compels us to set aside our prejudices and for once sympathise with the plight of 'the Other', in this case illegal immigrants who are prepared to risk everything to get to the country of their dreams and start a new life.  Welcome revisits territory which Lioret previously explored in his 1993 debut film, Tombés du ciel (remade in 2004 by Steven Spielberg as The Terminal), and is a similarly stark portrayal of the limbo-like existence which immigrants find themselves in when they become stranded at the border, so near to realising their ambitions, and yet so far.

The subject of illegal immigration is a controversial one, one that arouses strong feelings and takes up considerable column space in the newspapers.  (Journalists tend to overlook the fact that much of our prosperity is down to the contribution made by hardworking immigrants of the past and present.)  Welcome is much less concerned with the politics and economics of immigration than  with the humanitarian side of the equation.  It shows us how things are from the point of view of the illegal immigrants (a loaded term if ever there was one, as vile as the French term clandestins) - it shows what they are prepared to risk, what they suffer at the hands of an overzealous police, unscrupulous people traffickers and an intolerant native population.  It is a film that is both cruelly true-to-life and intensely thought-provoking, a film that cannot fail to leave its spectator unmoved, whatever your views on illegal immigrants.  In his best film to date, Philippe Lioret gives us a sense of what it is like to be an outsider who is willing to risk everything, absolutely everything, so that he may start a new life in what he considers to be a far better society than the one he was born into.

Welcome was nominated for ten Césars in 2010, and the fact that it did not win a single award may be more a reflection of its controversial content than its merit.  The film confronts us with some extremely unpalatable truths about the kind of society we may be in danger of becoming.  We are rightly disgusted by what the Nazis did during the Second World War, but the way in which illegal immigrants are treated as they try to enter our countries has an unmistakable ring of totalitarian fanaticism about it, as the film shows.  There are disturbing echoes of France under the Occupation: anyone who attempts to help the immigrants in any way risks prosecution, immigrants are refused entrance to shops and other public places, neighbours are all too willing to denounce immigrant-sympathisers to the police, and the detention centre into which the immigrants are unceremoniously dumped is clearly just a concentration camp by another name.  The parallels with life under the Nazis are all too easily seen and you are left wondering just what kind of society we are becoming if, to protect our own way of life, we must treat other human beings as if they were plague-infected vermin.

The obscene brutality of the world as it is experienced by the immigrants is put into sharp relief when set against the warm, selfless friendship that develops between an ordinary Frenchman, Simon, and an Iraqi refugee, Bilal, played respectively by Vincent Lindon and Firat Ayverdi.  Both actors bring a touching authenticity and depth to their performances which gives the film its arresting humanity.   Lindon, an established star of French cinema, is cast in the kind of role he is best suited for, the sympathetic working class everyman who appears to be in a perpetual mid-life crisis. Ayverdi, by contrast, is a total newcomer, and in his first acting job he succeeds in virtually stealing the film, so convincingly does he convey the feelings and aspirations of an immigrant who is desperate to start a new life in the West.  It is interesting that Bilal's attempt to get to what he believes is Utopia (Manchester as it turns out) is mirrored by Simon's own spiritual development in the course of the film.  Both characters are on a journey to a better place, but neither has much chance of getting there.

One of the roles of cinema which has been somewhat neglected in recent years is that of presenting important social issues to a mainstream audience in a way that stimulates interest and debate.  Welcome is just such a film, and it is encouraging that it attracted large audiences in France and many other countries in the West on its original release.  To its credit, it does not labour its political points but focuses more on its tale of friendship and personal aspiration, and this is what makes it such a powerfully engaging piece of drama.  Whilst the film is a tad simplistic in places (and is somewhat weakened by a few unnecessary plot contrivances), it succeeds in getting us to look at the issue of immigration from a fresh perspective, to ask ourselves whether the approach presently being pursued by our political leaders is necessarily the right one.  After all, it is only a matter of chance that we are not the ones trying to get in, and perhaps the truth is that we need immigrants far more than we currently realise.  There may come a time when people like Bilal - resourceful, driven and committed individuals - are welcomed with open arms.

Film Synopsis

Bilal, a 17-year-old Kurdish man, arrives illegally at Calais, hoping to swim across the Channel to England.  If he succeeds, he intends to look for the girlfriend he hasn't seen for a long time and train to become a footballer.  But first he has to learn how to swim, so he begins to frequent a municipal swimming pool.  Here, he gets to know Simon, a pool attendant, who is at a loose end after his recent divorce.  Impressed by Bilal's naive optimism, Simon agrees to coach him, but warns him that swimming across the English Channel is a virtual impossibility.  Bilal is in no mind to accept his friend's advice.  He must get to England, whatever the cost...