Beyond Words (2017)

Directed by: Urszula Antoniak | 87 minutes | drama | Actors: Jakub Gierszal, Andrzej Chyra, Christian Löber, Justyna Wasilewska, Andreas Paolo Perger, Malgorzata Krukowska

Immigration has been a common theme in movies since about the dawn of cinema history (think Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Immigrant’). Fueled by the refugee problem, however, we have been inundated in recent years with dramas and documentaries that address this subject. Filmmaker Urszula Antoniak, who herself moved from Poland to the Netherlands more than twenty years ago, found a new angle for ‘Beyond Words’. How is a perfectly integrated immigrant perceived by the outside world?

Michael is an attractive twenty-something with a good brain and a job with future prospects. His boss is his best friend. The young man – think Wall Street trader or fast advertising guy – lives in an apartment in Berlin and there’s no indication that he wasn’t born and raised here. Only when we see him practicing at home with a German speech course does a bell ring.

At work – Michael is a lawyer – we see him preparing for a pro bono case. His client, an African refugee, confronts him—intentionally or not—with their agreements in the opening scene, to which Michael declines the case. He doesn’t tell the Polish waitress with whom things could be done that he is also originally from Poland.

The arrival of his supposedly dead father turns everything upside down. When Stanislaw suddenly shows up at his door, Michael can no longer close his eyes to his past and the roots of his existence. In the weekend that follows, they carefully get to know each other better, but what is really important is not said. And in a scene, which is funny and sad at the same time, we see Michael interpreting between his boss Franz and his father, translating some harsh remarks quite freely.

‘Beyond Words’ is beautifully filmed. In moody black and white, the already photogenic Berlin looks good, of course, but the characters also benefit from the absence of color. Michael has a somewhat chilly demeanor, which is softened by the black and white image, and his vagabond-esque father appears less flamboyant than he actually is, so the two automatically grow closer on screen. What also helps is the excellent acting of both Jakub Gierszal and Andrzej Chyra.

Still, ‘Beyond Words’ doesn’t quite feel like a successful project. The distance between the viewer and the characters is not always bridged. Motivations and actions based on them remain unclear, we don’t feel we are looking at real people. It is understandable that Michael finds himself in an identity crisis, but the final act only raises questions.