| RATING: | 80% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
A clever little film about borders between people and peoples, the effects of white racism and what the desperate will do for money. Coming on like an intelligent version of The Transporter, this deals with real issues of humanitarianism and ethics.
The Whites here - although as desperate as the illegal migrants here - find great difficulty in empathising with others; hence, their essential inhumanity. What marks this out as special is the moral complexity of criminal behaviour hopefully ameliorated by disliking those trafficked and that it is also woman-centred in its preoccupation with the domestic and the familial. The kind of film that Thelma & Louise could never have been - no matter how hard it tried.
The central visual metaphor of a frozen river over which the action takes place is quite brilliant in that it clearly represents the thin ice upon which many of the these people skate in their everyday lives and the economic precariousness of those lives.
Packed with politics and emotions enough for the most jaded: this focuses ultimately on feminine solidarity and female sacrifice. Also the quiet, unassuming toughness of women who will do what they have to do ensure their families survive. The element of wishful-thinking is impossible to overlook given the very existence of Indian reservations in the United States and Canada and their racist meaning, but this is impressive work nonetheless.
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