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ACTOR
Brenda BlethynSotigui KouyatéSami BouajilaRoschdy Zem
DIRECTOR
Rachid Bouchareb
SYNOPSICS
London River (2009) is a English,French,Arabic movie. Rachid Bouchareb has directed this movie. Brenda Blethyn,Sotigui Kouyaté,Sami Bouajila,Roschdy Zem are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2009. London River (2009) is considered one of the best Drama,Mystery movie in India and around the world.
After traveling to London to check on their missing children in the wake of the 2005 terror attack on the city, two strangers come to discover their respective children had been living together at the time of the attacks.
London River (2009) Trailers
Same Actors
Same Director
London River (2009) Reviews
effective drama, tribute to the 7/7 bombings in London
This movie is a gentle and deep melodrama using the July 2005 terrorist acts as a jumping off point for telling about clashing cultures united in grief. The story is certainly a hard look at racial biases and is strongly backed by Blethyn's character, whose repressed hysteria clashes with Kouyaté's attitude (more similar to a calm resignation). The director has also depicted a very serious and fascinating study on how Londoners were unprepared to react to such an emergency. Overall this is a poignant and insight-filled take on prejudice in post-11/7 London, well acted and directed. There have been other "Londoner" films about the same subject (or about terrorism in the UK) but this is the best by far in my opinion.
Doubt is a killer
Weeks after the terrorist attacks in London a mother calls her daughter, over and over again. She hasn't heard from her in a while and is getting more and more anxious about her, knowing she lived close to where the events took place. When she goes to London to find her she finds a man instead. A man who matches her in one important manner - he is searching for his son. The two of them continue their search together and slowly find out more about themselves and each other. Dark and dreary, depressing and painful. Sometimes people get together for entirely the wrong reason and this is one of these occasions. They connect rather well and play their stories out in a believable way. As they go through their daily routine it becomes all too painfully clear where it will all end - but the real pain of this film is that it ends too quickly. It runs for 87 minutes and could have used another 15 without having grown less intense. The shortness makes it feel a little rushed, but only a little. 9 out of 10 steps in the dark
Commendable drama
STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning Elisabeth (Brenda Blethyn) lives a reclusive life on the shores of Guernsey, until her life is torn apart when she learns of the July 7th terror attacks in London, where her daughter lives. Meanwhile, Ousmane (Sotigui Kouyate) is a black Muslim immigrant from France who has also come to London to look for his son, who he has not seen from birth. When he discovers a photo and some contact details, he gets in touch with Elisabeth and they embark on a soul shattering quest to find their flesh and blood that takes them on a journey of discovery and hope, to the gravest depths of despair. In the extras section of the DVD, even Blethyn herself comments on doubts she had about accepting the script for London River, on account of how close it was to the attacks and the official enquiry etc. not coming out. But it's good that she pushed her doubts aside, because her performance is one of the more compelling things about this old fashioned feeling drama, tending to headlines from very recently. With the feel of some TV drama from the early 90s, director Rachid Bouchareb has laced his daring and challenging drama with some personal touches here and there that give it a neat feel of it's own. The execution never hits with it's maximum impact, and it's over too quickly to really make it shine. But the subtle, under-stated performances from the two lead actors and it's realistic feel of a tragedy and the cruelty of life unfolding lift it well above average. ***
Breaking the barriers
The tenth anniversary of the 7 July bombings has led to a flurry of programming including the somewhat disappointing and emotionally manipulative A Song for Jenny shown on BBC television. Rachid Bouchareb who made the award winning Days of Glory has made this curious low budget film just a few years after the atrocities which is a mixture of English, French and Arabic. Elisabeth (Brenda Blethyn) is a hard working farmer in Guernsey. After the July bombings she tries to contact her daughter who lives in London but she does not return her calls. Worried she makes her way to London and finds out that she is living in a flat in a predominantly Arab area. Ousmane (Sotigui Kouyate) is an African Muslim working in a forest in France. He has come to London to look for his son who his family back in Africa cannot contact. Ousmane knows little about his son had he had to leave his family behind to work in France. At one point we discover that he believes that his son might had been one of the perpetrators of the London bombings. Ousmane sees a photo of Elisabeth's daughter and realises that he has a picture of her and his son together and contacts her. Elisabeth is wary and distrustful of Ousmane and calls the police. It looks like the son and daughter were living together and her daughter was also learning Arabic. Elisabeth could not understand why she would be learning Arabic,hanging with a black African boy and living in a French-Arab area of London. Its all confusing to her. Eventually Elisabeth realises that they are both on the same quest and team up together to look for their respective children. It seems that there is hope that their children are alive and went abroad on the day of the bombings. Sotigui Kouyate gives Ousmane a quiet dignity, the actor was frail when he made the film but looks imposing with his big presence and dreadlocks. Brenda Blethyn specialises in playing frumps these days and here she very much hits the mark as someone who has grown in an environment a world away from multiculturalism of London. When she comes to London she is confused especially as she tries to fathom how her daughter ended up in such an alien environment and felt comfortable with it. The fact she comes from Guernsey helps get over the language barrier as she can communicate with Ousmane in French. Francis Magee plays a police inspector who speaks French in a bizarre Irish/Manx accent. You always suspect that the film will inflict a sucker punch to the duo. It is just a shame that it took place in such a poor setting of some basement corridor full of pipes that was supposedly a police station. It is a slow burning and thoughtful piece of two people looking for a glimmer of amongst despair and then dealing with their despair. Its simple premise is a big plus as you get pulled in with their search for their loved ones.
Thoughtful...and respectful,
London River is a quietly powerful and thought-provoking drama surrounding the aftermath of the London 7-7-2005 bombings. Brenda Blethyn, ever-watchable, is entirely believable as the distraught mother who cannot trace her daughter, when she sees news footage of the devastation, from her Guernsey home. On the other side of the coin is elderly, black and dread-locked Sotigui Kouyate, trying to contact his son, whom he walked out on when the boy was six, then having been working in France since. Both end up searching in London, Blethyn doing the rounds of missing person posters and showing photos to everybody she can, in the hope of any piece of news. The paths of these two unlikely kindred spirits cross when it transpires that their two children may have been living together and taking Arabic classes, through their local mosque. As you can imagine, there's quite a lot of cross-cultural clashes here, not just the black boy, white girl aspect, but also the Muslim element and the thorny issue, particularly at the time when the film is set; terrorism. Could they have been involved, too? The mother knows her daughter and knows she couldn't have been, but the same could not be said about the father...more food for thought. There's good solid acting from both - Blethyn typically more blubbery and emotional whilst Kouyate, as the sort of wise old sage, takes things more pragmatically and thoughtfully. It's a strange mix if you were to walk in on the film half-way through; follow it from the start and it seems quite natural. There's been comment that it's contrived in that Blethyn is suddenly able to speak the native French of Kouyate - I don't find that hard to believe at all, not only is she citizen of Guernsey, where French is their official other language but is also physically much closer to France than the U.K. Also, in the day that a woman of her age was educated, she (& myself) learnt a type of 'schoolboy' French - I could understand much of what was being said from my failed 'O' Level, back 30 years ago. So, a good drama, for what it is. It certainly won't appeal to all, both in subject matter, nor in its slow-ish, measured pace. But for those who enjoy something a bit different, something that shines a new light, perhaps, on a recent piece of our history, plus the acting, then London River has a lot going for it. I viewed it on BBC1.