Rachid Bouchareb London River

In ’London River’, Franco-Algerian Rachid Bouchareb - director of ’Little Senegal’ and ’Days of Glory’ - tells the story of a middle-aged British woman (Brenda Blethyn) and an elderly African man (Sotigui Kouyaté, in a role that won him the Silver Bear at the 2009 Berlinale) who cross paths in London in 2005 during the desperate search for their children, missing after the bombings that shocked the city on July 7th.

The film focuses on both characters, revealing the intimate experience of a widow searching for her only daughter, and a sad-eyed father who tries to locate a son he barely knows.

Blethyn’s perfomance as the anxious mother is magnificent, and allows us to sympathise with her narrrow-minded character. Mali-born Kouyaté gives a completely opposite approach, in a more constrained than emotional perfomance, leaving a splendid impression for those of us who are discovering his work for the first time.

Even if the happy-ending escape route Bouchareb places in the final part could have been concessive, the film’s ultimate resolution is congruent with the terrible episode that hovers in the minds of the two parents during their entire search.

by Laslo Rojas