Tori and Lokita

A young boy and an adolescent girl from Benin struggle to lead a new life together in Belgium.

Tori and Lokita is the latest work from those much-respected writer/directors the Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc. Fondly remembered for such great films as The Son (2002) and Two Days, One Night (2014), their recent work may not have quite reached that level but I would rank the first half of Tori and Lokita as being as masterly as anything they have ever given us. This is a deeply sympathetic film which has much in common with the recent Aisha since here too we have a work concerned with the plight of immigrants caught up in bureaucracy. I much admired Aisha and will continue to recommend it but, effective as Frank Berry’s film is, as a director he is outclassed by the Dardennes.

The huge impact achieved by the first half of Tori and Lokita stems from a combination of factors. The film sets out to tell the story of the close bond that has developed between two young immigrants who have met en route from Africa to Belgium. Lokita (Joely Mbundu) is a teenager, and Tori (Pablo Schils) is only eleven and both actors are non-professionals. Even so, they convey most authentically the friendship that links these two so closely and supportively that they have opted to claim that they are brother and sister – a pretence that could be helpful in enabling Lokita to win her claim for asylum in that it gives her a certain duty to look after Tori. Their situation is presented with wonderful economy as told by the Dardennes who are aided in this by the editing of Marie-Hélène Dozo. The film is all the stronger for being so notably direct (the very start finds Lokita in a close-up shot being cross-questioned by an interviewer and, as she looks straight at us, we know at once that she is inventing facts to help justify the claim that Tori is her orphaned brother).

In this film the Dardennes choose to go to the heart of the matter as regards immigrants seeking a new home. No special circumstances are called into play to arouse sympathy and the film never prettifies the material. It recognises the fact that such youngsters will do whatever is necessary to survive in these conditions. In this instance it means that both are employed in a restaurant by a chef, Betim (Alban Ukaj), whose main business is trading in cannabis and both Tori and Lokita deliver drugs to his customers. In the same way Lokita is old enough to be pressurised into sexual acts by both Betim and by one of his men. That's just the way it is when you are caught up in this level of society. The basic nature of the situation in which Tori and Lokita find themselves is such that the Dardennes need no specific background stories for them. Instead, they can go straight in by showing what the lives of these two have become and by letting us understand why Lokita is driven in deeper still in order to obtain false papers when her application is turned down. She may be sent off on her own for three months to act as a gardener in the hideaway where Betim is cultivating plants for cannabis but, despite the superb characterisations, she and Tori represent for the viewer the epitome of every young immigrant. Helped additionally by the extra sense of realism that comes from the absence of a music score, the film renders their plight heartbreaking. Furthermore, in doing so it asks us to recognise that anybody who has a heart must want to reach out to people in these circumstances and that not to do so - or to argue over who is deserving - is to show a basic lack of humanity.

I have stressed the quality of the first half of Tori and Lokita because it achieves its aims perfectly and could not be better judged. The second half is no less committed but it moves on from universal truths about immigrants to an individual story which, if only by comparison with what has gone before, feels somewhat fictional. The plotting starts to feel like plotting and the tale is not without contrivances, as in a scene where a particular car arrives at a particular spot at a particular time. If that disappoints, that is in part because so much of the film is so outstandingly good, but the falling away is never such that the film collapses. Indeed, imperfect though it is when considered as a whole, Tori and Lokita is one of the most memorable films of the year.

Original title: Tori et Lokita.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Pablo Schils, Joely Mbundu, Alban Ukaj, Tijmen Govaerts, Charlotte De Bruyne, Nadège Ouedraogo, Marc Zinga, Annette Closset, Thomas Doret, Amel Benaïssa, Leonardo Raco, Ngindu Tshimpanga, Dieudonné Issam.

Dir Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, Pro Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Denis Freyd and Delphine Tomson, Screenplay Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, Ph Benoït Dervaux, Pro Des Igor Gabriel, Ed Marie-Hélène Dozo, Costumes Dorothée Guiraud.

Les Films du Fleuve/Archipel 35/Savage Film/France 2 Cinéma/VOO/Proximus/Canal+/ Ciné+-Picturehouse Entertainment.
88 mins. Belgium/France. 2022. UK Rel: 2 December 2022. Cert. 15.