Fortune Seekers (2018)

Directed by: Hanro Smitsman | 90 minutes | drama | Actors: David Elsendoorn, Jouman Fattal, Marius Mensink, Peter Boven, Joost Koning, Sabri Saad El-Hamus, Anniek Pheifer, Marcel Hensema, Albert Secuur, Nanette Edens, Dzifa Kusenuh, Susannah Elmecky, Eileen Farnham, Zahra Lfil, Fadel El Hakim Rayfa Ahmad, Jeroen de Man, Joris Smit, Mads Wittermans, Wouter van Oord, Kees Hulst, Tijn Docter, Ian Bok, Sophie van Winden, Ko van den Bosch, Lusanne Arts, Anna van Dijk, Ulrica de la Mar

The impossible love, it is of all times. Already in ancient Greece, the impossible love between Pyramus and Thisbe was written. The two dream of a life together, but are stopped by their fathers. That doesn’t stop them from meeting in secret. However, fate throws a spanner in the works when Pyramus believes his beloved Thisbe has been eaten by a lion when he arrives late for a secret date. He immediately puts an end to his life. The girl only briefly fled from the predator. When she returns to the hiding place, and sees the dead body of her lover, she too takes her own life. For example, after a few detours, the story served as the inspiration for Shakespeare’s well-known work Romeo and Juliet. There, too, the two lovers find happiness in the afterlife. Impossible loves don’t have a happy ending, it seems.

‘Happiness Seekers’ also has its origin in the myths and stories surrounding impossible love. This concerns the passion between the traditional Dutch Groninger Harko and the Syrian asylum seeker, for many a fortune seeker, Faiza. The distinction between the known and the traditional versus the strange indicates a strongly socially engaged perspective. This social charge is reinforced by the earthquake-ravaged backdrop. The geological shocks are hardly subtle for the people of Groningen, and they are no less serious than the arrival of the asylum seekers.

Those frictions could be a guarantee for great drama. ‘Happiness seekers’, however, keeps it remarkably light. The question is whether this is done wisely. For example, characters get stuck in stereotypes. All teens are excessively hormonal, adults are all depressed. The asylum seekers are just as interchangeable. Traumas, or other mental vulnerabilities from the past, are invisible. In the relatively short running time given to the film, it may not be easy to look for depth. But with the number of characters that are presented in ‘Happiness Seekers’, that does not seem to have been an ambition of the makers at all.

The decor looks very old fashioned. This is not so much due to the Groningen landscape, but rather to its interpretation. Public transport looks like it started its schedule in the last century. It naturally increases the contrast between the peasant Harko and the more contemporary Faiza, but at the same time it is also somewhat false. This makes ‘Happiness Seekers’ extremely fairytale-like, it has little to do with a social story.

Also the interaction between the characters, which is full of irony bordering on insipidity, stands in the way of any realism. The result of all that is that ‘Happiness Seekers’ lingers in sympathy. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the premise of impossible love and the setting of the film are just a little off. However, there is a caveat to this lack of realism. Somewhere ‘Happiness Seekers’ reminds us of the ridiculous statements of the fallen politician Halbe Zijlstra about refugees who only come to the Netherlands to perform cosmetic procedures on their bodies. Sometimes we truly live in a foreign land. Then an impossible love that doesn’t end in bloodshed for a change is so beautiful.