“A simple and effective experimental semi-documentary that makes up for its brevity with a sincerity and soulfulness that we have glimpsed throughout the director’s previous work.”
There have been many exceptional statements made on the nature of photography and its existence as a medium and form of telling stories, with the academic interweaving with the artistic in our continued effort to understand precisely what it is about capturing a specific moment and turning something usually inconsequential into both art and history. One of the most powerful comments on the medium and its importance in both areas comes from Diane Arbus, the celebrated photographer known for candid images of people who usually existed on the margins of society in some way. She notably said that “a picture is a secret about a secret – the more it tells you, the less you know”, which is essentially the entirety of the art form condensed into a single sentence. We use photography for different reasons – for some it’s to capture memorable moments or preserve memories that we feel are not ours to have indefinitely, while others have more urgent reasons to take photographs. Cláudia Varejão looks at both in the form of Kora, a film in which she explores the nature of photography as not only a way of turning reality into art, but as the bedrock of many cultures and their efforts to preserve their past. A simple and effective experimental semi-documentary that makes up for its brevity with a sincerity and soulfulness that we have glimpsed throughout the director’s previous work, the film looks at testimonies of around half a dozen women as they reflect on their past, told through the photographs that they carry with them. This simple but powerful act ensures that they are not leaving their roots – and the people who represent them – behind as they pursue new opportunities, some of them for an indefinite amount of time.
Throughout Kora we are introduced to several female protagonists, each one being given a few minutes to provide her testimony. The differences are as notable as the similarities – they come from a variety of countries, stretching from Afghanistan to Ukraine, and are all refugees who have found sanctuary on the supposedly welcoming shores of Portugal. Another unifying element is the fact that they all left family members behind to make their journey, fleeing as a way to give their families a better life from a distance. This film is their story, and the director carefully fashions a compelling work in which these women (whose names we only know from the credits – within the film, they are all nameless and every piece of information we get about their origins is discovered through their commentary) discuss their journey to this point in life, both physically and psychologically. The migrant crisis remains a contentious issue across the globe, but very rarely do we find a director so insistent on plucking the conversation out of the hands of hosts and their usually divided opinions, and instead allowing the people who have experienced the feeling of retreating from their homes, whether for financial reasons or the dangers lurking in their home countries such as war, to tell their own stories. This is a simple but powerful act of solidarity shown to a population that has often been neglected or shafted into the background as a result of being on the receiving end of continuous discourse in which they are reduced to nothing but a homogenous entity used as a tool on both sides of the socio-cultural divide.
Kora is a film that is as thematically rich as it is artistically resonant, and Varejão’s compassion is only matched by her genuine fascination with these women and their stories, crafting Kora around them rather than having them merely be players in some broader set of ideas. The focus is on the words of these women, which are complemented (rather than driven) by the imagery. They all undergo the same process of discussing their journey, coupled with brief images of them interacting with a photo booth, which contrasts immensely with the pictures each one of them carries, depicting loved ones living and dead, creating a very stark depiction of their lives and recollections. Memory is a theme that is difficult to represent on screen without it feeling overwrought or intensely sentimental, and the director finds a way around this by carefully focusing on the small details, particularly those that are almost inconsequential. This is a recurring motif in her work, whereby she finds the beauty in minuscule elements that otherwise would be overlooked, but form the foundation of her narrative. It is a unique but simple way of making a film that covers remarkably challenging subject matter, and the blurring of reality and fiction only adds layers of complexity to an already impenetrable film – but we’re consistently reminded that this is being lovingly crafted by a filmmaker whose vision and ambition very rarely goes awry in terms of how it explores its underlying themes, doing so in a manner that is decidedly more enthralling than we may have initially anticipated.
Considering it runs less than thirty minutes, there is clearly much more to be said in Kora than we ultimately receive – it’s a film about the challenges of being a woman in a changing world, where war and political unease have created the need to seek a more fruitful life elsewhere, a journey that is certainly not without its seemingly insurmountable challenges. The film establishes its intentions from the first moments and stays true to its promise of being an honest glimpse into the lives of these women, which may not be an easy task but is one that is nonetheless essential to understanding the gravity of the issue that Varejão is intent on exploring. She removes any sense of triviality or tokenism from the conversation and instead presents the facts as they are, told through the firsthand accounts of these women. The unfortunate reality is that they are only five stories out of thousands, and while the film offers meaningful snapshots into the personal histories of these people, there are countless others who remain obscured and are unlikely to ever have their voices heard. These women not only speak for themselves, but for each of those people too; the film reflects a movement based around setting aside the fact that the refugee crisis is included in every politician’s ideological portfolio, and instead putting a face and voice to a few of these stories, humanizing people who have been stripped of the very foundation of their existence. It’s a fascinating and sometimes challenging film that has incredible intentions, aiming to tell a story that no one else seems willing to tackle and showing that there is value in looking beyond the common conceptions of an issue that continues to compound, but where very little active change in terms of policies and social perceptions appears on the horizon, unlike the unwavering hope these women have that the future will somehow be brighter for the next generation.