Starring: Alicia Vikander, James McAvoy, Hakeemshady Mohamed, Alexander Siddig
Distributor: Backlot Films
Runtime: 112 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2018
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This sub-titled, multi-national romantic drama is based on a novel of the same name written by JM Ledgard in 2011. It tells the story of two people with disparate backgrounds, who are drawn together at a beachside Hotel in Normandy. The film’s title means the complete covering, or obscuring, of the complexities of life by romantic love. The film blends its characters and scenes together with imagery of water.
The movie opens on the Eastern Coast of Africa, where James Moore (James McAvoy), a Scotsman, is being held captive in chains, and is being tortured by Jihadist fighters; he is a secret intelligence service agent whose mission was to gather evidence on Al Qaeda in Somalia. At the same time, many thousand of miles away, in the Greenland Sea, Danielle Flinders (Alicia Vikander), prepares to dive in a submarine to the ocean floor. James and Danielle have very different preoccupations. James is trying to survive as a spy, while Danielle is on the cusp of realising her life ambition to prove a theory on the origin of life by exploring the depths of the ocean. Both face death in different ways – Danielle by suffocation on the ocean floor, and James by brutal torture.
Both James and Danielle memorise a chance encounter they had at a remote resort in Normandy which gave rise to their intense attraction to each other. Each knew that their jobs were destined to separate them, but they fell deeply in love. James was posing as a water engineer to help him infiltrate the terrorist enclave in Somalia, and Danielle is a bio-mathematician, desperate to explore life beneath the sea at its darkest and deepest levels. Both the threat of Islamic terrorism, and professional ambition affect their love.
In Normandy, the two of them are “submerged” in love, and they talk about the mystery of the oceans, and the religious faith that accompanies fighting. When James departs from the hotel, and is caught in his spy activities, he is unable to communicate back to Danielle that he loves her, and Danielle cannot understand why she no longer hears from him.
German-born director, Wim Wenders draws the disparate elements of the film together. He directs the film to link prison internment, romance, ambition, religious differences, and underwater adventure. James and Danielle are two people who fall in love, and are destined to stay apart. To handle the mix, Wenders keeps on going back in time, and dwells on the present, to highlight the vast complexities of their relationship. The cinematography in the movie is spectacular, and the film has a wonderful musical score. Wenders paces his film slowly, and reflectively.
The film shows examples of Wenders’ style that he demonstrated so ably in films like, ‘Wings of Desire” (1987) and “Paris, Texas” (1984). Parallel stories intertwine and the power of each of them impacts on the relevance of the other. As the film moves between two different backdrops, the tension associated with the two threads through them both. The acting of McAvoy and Vikander is impressive, and the beauty of the film’s’ visuals helps enormously to integrate its themes.
This is a romance movie that deals with heavy societal and human issues: terrorism, the beginning of life, loneliness, cultural and religious tensions, and how relationships are affected by personal struggles. The film addresses the delicate balance between love and loneliness, and the intensity of unexpected, passionate involvement, and it explores fear of dying, and the transient character of abiding love.
A film by Wim Wenders is always worth watching for moments in cinema that reveal a master craftsman at work. Single scenes in this movie are intensely powerful – illustrated, for example, by James crying while waiting “for the will of God”, and Danielle joyously responding to life for the first time on the ocean floor. This is undoubtedly an Art House movie, but one of very fine quality.
Peter W. Sheehan is an Associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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