Shot entirely on three mobile phones, Midnight Traveler follows the traumatic journey of Afghan filmmaker Hassan Fazili as he and his family escape across Europe from their homeland. It is not their choice to flee, and they are not doing so on economic grounds. Hassan’s life is in danger from the Taliban due to a fatwah.
This is not a tale of doom and gloom and Hassan never tries to garner our sympathy for his two delightful young girls, who are clearly losing part of their childhood to this grim and often dangerous trek across the unknown. And although the family are put under emotional and physical hardship, often having to spend the night without a roof over their heads, they never argue or fall out. Quite the opposite, the kids are cheerful to the last. And his delightful wife, filmmaker Fatima Hossaini, is always smiling, even when she falls off a bicycle and injures her arm.
The 3500-mile journey often makes for grim viewing. Hassan tries his best to put an artistic spin on proceedings this often makes for grim and claustrophobic viewing as the mobile cameras are limited in their widescreen potential. Most of the footage is therefore of an intimate and close-up nature, although we occasionally get a wider glimpse of a field, or transit camp. Feeling at times like a simple piece of reportage, Midnight Traveler lacks a narrative arc or any kind of dramatic momentum making it feel rather monotonous at one and a half hours. But this courageous film stands as a testament recording for posterity the pain and suffering of one family during a very traumatic period in migration history, And for that it is worthwhile. MT
ON RELEASE FROM 17 JANUARY 2020 NATIONWIDE
