Based on actual events but fictionalized for dramatic effect, this powerful film from director Frieder Schlaich charts the struggles of West African refugee Frederic Otomo (Isaach De Bankole) as he fights to survive intolerance in the streets of Stuttgart, Germany. Unable to work because he lacks the proper documentation, Otomo is forced to rely on charity until his frustration leads to violence and he breaks the arm of the law.
The film doesn't believe the police deserved to die (or that the ticket inspector should have been assaulted), but then again it doesn't believe a society should so treat a man that this is what he comes to do.
Much of the sense of size in this account of an immigrant worker, who is only one among many thousands in Germany, comes from the performance by Isaach de Bankole.
Documents the institutionalized racism and xenophobia that painted one man into a corner, while never excusing the terrible means by which he took his final escape.
I was impressed by the decision to make Otomo a bit of an anti-hero, seeming aware that in desperate times, good people may say or do things outside the norm.
Another one from Germany and immigration. This one is apparently based in a true story of a african man of Camerun who was running away from his country because his family had been supportive of the german military during their rule. The central point of the movie is the human factor and the value of the human
singularity, the respect of the other and the criticism of the world made about bureocratic papers. It is a well made movie, and a brilliant film but one with substance, message and content...
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