Recently premiered in Karlovy Vary, this drama from Cypriot director Tonia Mishiali is at its best when it doesn’t force its poetry.
Juxtaposing the story of a young asylum seeker with that of a former drug addict, “The Lion at My Back” highlights the way in which perceived hierarchies of suffering feel somewhat irrelevant on an individual level. Or, rather, that they should: Everyone has more to gain in looking for similarities than in emphasizing difference. Presented in the Crystal Globe competition at Karlovy Vary, the second feature from Cypriot director Tonia Mishiali is at its best when it stops short of waxing lyrical about the beauty of connection in the face of adversity: These sentimental flourishes undermine the raw and visceral quality of the bond between the film’s two very different characters. Before it indulges this streak with an unnecessarily melodramatic final act, ‘The Lion at My Back’ has the makings of a more original and grounded film about healing through friendship.
The film opens on a celebration. Inside a cosy refugee center, staff and migrants together are celebrating the 18th birthday of Mariama (Sokhna Diallo), a young refugee of African descent with a French accent and a relaxed attitude that seems surprising for somebody in her situation. Even more so when her entering adulthood means that she can no longer reside at the refuge: She is thrown out overnight and given no concrete help about how to start living on her own. Mishiali’s filmmaking does not overemphasize the brutality of this situation. Here and throughout the film, the style is more observational, staying close to its two protagonists to capture the very different ways in which they react to events and fit into their surroundings.
From the start, it is striking how Mariama takes things in her stride. Her optimism could be due to her youth, but not to her inexperience: Before the film reveals later on why she fled her country, her status as a refugee, alone in a foreign country and without any family, makes it clear that she has been through a lot. Here, the film threatens to reduce Mariama to the offensive cliché of the wise foreigner, penniless but rich with a kind of knowledge that people from the “civilized” world might have lost. This uncomfortable tension never truly lets up, but as the film progresses, Mariama’s easygoing and trusting attitude are problematized in interesting ways when they come into contact with the anger, wariness, and aggression of Stella (Elena Kallinikou).
A steely-eyed Cyprus native in her late thirties or early forties, Stella is an employee of the center, but does not get involved in its activities. It is soon revealed that she has issues of her own: a younger daughter she cannot see, and an addiction problem she is struggling to keep under control. But when she makes eye contact with Mariama at the birthday party, they hold each other’s gaze. Stella looks almost annoyed by Mariama’s happiness, but her barely concealed hostility seems to intrigue rather than repulse the young woman.
When Stella finds Mariama the next morning sleeping on the center’s doorstep, she does not intervene as the manager tells the young woman to leave. But she does look at her, with the kind of hardness that suggests a person who disapproves of the way things are done around here but knows that, if she so much as opens her mouth, she might just lose her temper and her job. Perhaps Mariama only sticks to her because, as an employee, Stella has privileged access to the center. Or perhaps Mariama senses, long before it becomes clear to the viewer or even to Stella herself, a real moral fiber and sensitivity behind the older woman’s tough exterior.
Although “The Lion at My Back” places the two women’s journeys in parallel, showing how each impacts the other in meaningful ways, it is Stella’s arc that will truly dictate the shape of the film. For while Mariama obviously faces enormous, existential challenges, the way she approaches the world suggests that things will always work out for her in some way. She is open to the world, quick to make friends and potential lovers; thanks to Stella she finds a place to stay and even a job. Her only flaw might be a certain naïveté, but it pales in comparison to the myriad issues facing Stella.
The contrast of Mariama’s experience makes Stella’s life look practically as somber and sordid as a film noir, where no one can be trusted and tragedy lurks from all sides. But as the film suggests, this is mostly her trauma speaking. When Stella needs to gather a large sum in order to secure a lease on a flat for herself and her daughter, Mariama offers to help, but Stella sees no other choice but to go back to the pimp who once exploited her. This is obviously a bad idea, but one that says a lot about the perspective of an otherwise largely silent protagonist.
It is unfortunate that the film here decides to embrace a crime film aesthetic — complete with stylish pimps, wads of cash, and neon lighting — that fits with Stella’s state of mind, but jars with all that came before. This turn and the ensuing denouement belong to a more predictable and artificial film than “The Lion at My Back” initially suggests it might be. Its concluding images emphasise a clichéd concept of motherhood, as though to put a neat bow on what was in fact a more complex story of trust, patience and everyday courage.