To a Land Unknown: a film review

SPOILER ALERT

Kino pavasaris (Vilnius International Film Festival) is the largest and most prestigious film festival in Lithuania. Held annually in Vilnius and other cities, it showcases a diverse selection of international and Lithuanian films, including arthouse, independent, and award-winning productions. Until this year, I had never participated in this festival. To be honest, I didn’t really know about it. But this time, I decided I really wanted to take a part in it, so I started my movie marathon with a very strong film—To a Land Unknown, directed by Danish-Palestinian filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel. Dare I say, one of the best movies I’ve ever seen?

First of all, I want to discuss the aesthetics. The film is set in Athens, but not the version of Greece you usually see in movies. Instead, it portrays a harsh, limited, and impoverished side of the city—though it doesn’t make poverty the entire focus of the story. Many scenes take place in parks, run-down streets, and cramped apartments. At one point, my partner asked, “Why aren’t they showing the beautiful side of Athens?” That’s when I realized that it’s because the Palestinian characters in the story don’t see it either. They are trapped in poverty, with no means to explore the city or visit its attractions. Money is scarce, and survival takes precedence. Then, the colors. The tones of the film felt distinctly Arab—but not in the stereotypical Hollywood sense. No camels wandering the desert, no veiled women staring dramatically into the camera. Instead, the warm hues created a sense of familiarity and safety, despite the fact that the characters themselves were not necessarily trustworthy. The only shift in color I noticed was in the scene where Reda woke up on the day they were supposed to fly to Germany. He took the drugs lying on the table, and in that moment, I knew things were going to end badly. Up until that scene, the warm colors had given me hope that they might make it. But as the director himself said, “Most of them don’t actually make it, you know. That’s just the reality.”

I think the movie shed a completely new light on what it means to be an immigrant in exile. Europe never fails to discriminate against refugees, especially Palestinians, who are trapped in a system that refuses to recognize them. A Palestinian passport is not as powerful as other national passports, making travel and obtaining visas complicated. This results in difficulties moving freely and finding a job. And yet, Europeans love to throw labels at them—thieves, criminals, burdens. This film challenges that shallow, dehumanizing perspective by showing the brutal reality Palestinians (and Syrians) endure just to have a chance at life. And life, as we see it, is not all black and white. That doesn’t mean crime should be excused or normalized. Understanding doesn’t mean accepting. But in the face of survival, a person will do whatever it takes to stay alive. Desperate times demand desperate actions—that’s just human. The choices these two characters made weren’t ideal, maybe not even moral, but were they really left with any other option? People love to sit on their high horses and judge—”He should’ve done this, he should’ve earned money that way.” But I’ve never bought into that whole “If he wanted, he would” mentality. That’s just cheap advice from people who haven’t experienced real challenges. Life isn’t that simple and people are a lot more complex than that. For example, take Reda and Chatila—two characters who, at first glance, seemed easy to define. Reda is the junkie, constantly struggling to stay clean, selling his body for money. And then there’s Chatila, the responsible cousin, always cleaning up Reda’s mess, trying to keep him on track. Chatila is the good guy, Reda is the burden. However, as the story unfolds, those labels start to blur. Despite everything, Reda wasn’t just some lost cause—he was fighting a brutal battle inside his own head. No matter how low he sank, you could see the regret, the weight of his choices eating him alive day after day. And Chatila? He wasn’t as righteous as he seemed either. He had his own moments of moral decay, but the one that hit the hardest was when he told Reda to sleep with a man for money—again. Just before that, he had been the one judging Reda for doing exactly that. Additionally, there are other significant moments, such as the complete betrayal of Syrian refugees. I suppose it highlights the harsh reality of human nature—that in desperate times, people will do anything to survive, even turning on each other. But in that moment, his desperation overtook his principles. That’s when I realized that Chatila wasn’t just slipping; he was losing himself. But who am I to villainize him? He needed to get out of Athens. He needed to reach Germany. He had something to lose, and that meant he had something to fight for.

But what did Reda have to fight for exactly? What was his quest?

After the movie, I couldn’t stop thinking about Reda and his fate. He was hopeless, trapped in a cycle he couldn’t break. Germany terrified him—not just because it was unknown, but because he had nothing waiting for him there. No family, no purpose, no sense of belonging. The shithole he was stuck in had become a kind of survival mechanism, a loop where at least he had Chatila—a cousin who struggled with him, kept him afloat, helped him stay clean. The thought of leaving only started to truly scare him when Malik asked, “What are you gonna do in Germany?” That’s when it hit him. He had no place there. The café, the future they were chasing—it wasn’t his dream. It was Chatila’s. The life ahead wasn’t promised to him. Chatila had a wife and a child waiting. He had something to fight for. Something to return to. But Reda? What did he have? What was he even fighting for?

And I think that realization is what ultimately killed him. The weight of Athens, of exile, of years spent scraping by—it all caught up with him. Because going to Germany didn’t just mean escaping, it meant facing reality. And Reda was terrified of reality. The life he had was miserable, but at least it was familiar. It gave him something to chase, even if he never caught it. Maybe that’s why, in a twisted way, it became his comfort—the comfort of always searching for something better rather than confronting what is. As Fleifel said, “I don't think that they’re so naive that they think that life is better on the other side, because they have no idea.” And that’s what scared Reda the most. The journey into the unknown. The possibility that there was nothing waiting for him.