SIFF Review: When We Leave

The writing/directing debut of Viennese Feo Aladag is the most engaging tale of oppressed Muslim women I’ve seen since Panar Jahafi’s The Circle.

But instead of an inside Iranian story filmed by an oppressed and imprisoned director, Aladag gives us a dual view of the immigrant Turkish foreign-worker population in Germany. Sibel Kekilli is luminous as Umay, an Istanbul beauty who flees with her young son from a wife-beating conservative guy. Her family has German roots, and she’s cosmopolitan, able to land on her feet as a single mom (with a good German friend’s help) and find work in a restaurant. The authorities in both countries protect her, but they can’t conquer the anti-woman mindset of her extended family.

The setup is necessarily schematic, and the film doesn’t completely transcend its limits: it’s an issue movie about colliding cultures and the chilling shadow of honor killings. What’s interesting is the depth and feeling of Kekilli’s character and the vivid interplay of her family, ranging from outright cartoon brutality to wounded sympathy. When she keeps crashing weddings and trying to force her family to forgive and acknowledge her, she’s like a teenager in a slasher flick. No! Don’t open that door to the basement!

Yet palpable emotional realism redeems formula suspense. One incomprehensible mistake is the translation of the original German title, Die Fremde, which means The Aliens or The Strangers or The Foreign – any of which would beat the flat, senseless When We Leave. It’s the worst movie title translation since Fast Times at Ridgemont High played Switzerland under the title I Think I Just Got Kissed By a Moose.

When We Leave
May 29, 4:00pm
Pacific Place