The past day has presented me with two films that made their first appearances at high-profile festivals early in the year: Scottish auteur David Mackenzie’s first U.S. effort “Spread” — a “look ma, I can act” venture of sorts for Ashton Kutcher — played at Sundance in January, while Rachid Bouchareb’s “London River” was a favorite (and an award-winner) at February’s Berlinale. Suffice to say that winter festival bows are all these titles have in common.
LONDON RIVER (***)
American filmmakers have been combing the ashes of 9/11 for inspiration for some years now, but the British have been far more reticent in taking the London bombings of July 2005. Indeed, it has fallen to Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb (a recent Oscar nominee for his excellent WWII drama “Days of Glory”) to make the first major fictional exploration of this territory, and happily he doesn’t fumble the catch by presuming importance.
The story of two culturally opposed parents (an impoverished Francophone Muslim and a middle-class British widow) who travel to the eponymous city after the attacks, in search of their missing children, “London River” infuses a standard-issue story of parental grief with social and racial tensions that mine the Western suspicion of Islam that has become commonplace in the wake of 9/11. (“The place is crawling with Muslims!” Brenda Blethyn’s culturally sheltered rural character exclaims about London, in one of the film’s few stabs at humor.)