Yesterday afternoon I decided to see Tori and Lokita at the Broadway. It is an incredibly powerful and heartbreaking look at the immigrant experience in Europe that left me absolutely shattered. Lokita (Joely Mbundu) is a young teenage girl who emigrated illegally to Belgium from Benin. She bonded with a ten-year-old boy from Cameroon named Tori (Pablo Schils) while on the journey and they now claim to be siblings in order to stay together. She feels tremendous pressure from her mother back in Benin to send money home to support her family and is harassed by Firmin (Marc Zinga), the leader of the gang who smuggled them into Belgium, for payment of the exorbitant fee for his services but the only job she can get is as a drug courier for Betim (Alban Ukaj), a restaurateur who also frequently requests sexual favors from her. She grows desperate when she is denied a work visa and accepts a dangerous job offered by Betim in return for fake papers but this takes her away from Tori and causes her tremendous anxiety about his welfare. Tori, in return, does everything he can to rescue Lokita from her untenable situation. I fell in love with both of these characters because they are so smart and resourceful and their relationship with each other is incredibly tender. The two lead performances, by unknown actors, are exceptional and so sympathetic that the final resolution left me feeling both sad and angry at a corrupt system designed to exploit desperate people at every turn. The gritty hand-held cinematography and the fast pace enhance the sense of urgency and at no time did I doubt the dangers that these characters faced. This was difficult to watch but I loved the message about the power of friendship in a hostile world and I highly recommend it.
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