Tori and Lokita

 

Joely Mbundu and Pablo Schils

I've kinda been avoiding Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's Tori and Lokita since it was released in America last March. I've usually liked or at least not hated the brothers' films, but neorealism has never been my cup of tea. However, I found Tori and Lokita, their twelfth fictional effort, to be their best film thus far. The documentary roots of the two sibling filmmakers remain, but their foregrounding of their two protagonists' struggles to settle in Belgium make this their most affecting film. The sociological background clutter in the Dardennes' films often leads to tedium, but from its first frame, a suffocating close-up of Lokita (Joely), this film focuses on the plight of two orphans in a shit storm with concision and restraint. 

Lokita is 17 and Tori (Pablo Schils) is almost twelve when we meet them living in a refugee center in Lieges. They are posing as siblings even though they are from different countries. They bonded in Sicily where smugglers initially brought them and are actually closer than most siblings. Both work for a chef who has a sideline dealing drugs. They are constantly being hassled by the abusive chef (a terrific Alban Ukaj), by immigration authorities, the police and by the smugglers who use them as cash cows. The film's focus remains on their plight, we see little of Lieges, which emphasizes the few choices facing the protagonists. Things get more claustrophobic when Lokita is shut up working as a tender in a marijuana grow house for three months. In response, the resourcefulness of the heroic duo is heartening throughout, but there is little doubt that they have no exit from a life of servitude. 

Tori and Lokita bond over music. Their vocal duos, both for restaurant patrons and when they are together alone, are virtually the only moments of solace in the film. They speak to a union of souls that transcends the numbed horror of their everyday lives. The Dardennes brothers continually have shown individuals struggling against inequality and injustice. Tori and Lokita succeeds because the performances of Mr. Schils and Ms. Mbundu humanize what could have been the usual anti-capitalist screed. The sisterly sacrifice that concludes the film reminded me of Sansho the Bailiff and I can think of no higher praise.