In Philippe Lioret's latest film Welcome the title is obviously a contradiction, but the meaning of the contradiction itself is just as obvious. It's about illegal aliens in Europe, in this specific film narrowed down to Calais in France. And they are certainly not welcome.
Pic holds an unsettling tone throughout. While story lines tend to diverge, it's reminiscent of Ulrich Seidl's Import/Export in that it tells a story about people in motion in contemporary Europe. People whose conditions were bad from their take-off point, but becomes nonexistent in the grand, boarder-less EU. The limitations with this modern refugee policy of EU is that it only benefits our own. This is all old news for Lioret's protagonist Bilal (Firat Ayverdi) who comes from war-torn Iraq. His journey to Calais where the story begins has been long and painful, and the way to his love in London seems to stretch far beyond the horizon for the seventeen year old refugee.
These are harsh times, Lioret proclaims through images of a port district infested with immigrants, battering cops and even authorities that manifest a despicable manner not only towards refugees but just as well to people trying to help them. One of them is Simon (Vincent Lindon), a disgraced ex-champion in swimming. He seeks atonement in Bilal for his previous mistakes in life and the two becomes committed to each other. But in these harsh times nothing is certain and struggle lays ahead for both of them.
Philippe Lioret covers pretty much the whole lot of it. Each of his characters carries around on fear, despair, desires, love, longings and struggle. It is classic ingredients taken from the ordinary lives of those immigrants. In Welcome, however, it blends well with the non-immigrants as well. It is something they have to live with constantly, but something that is exposed to us at times as well. It is indeed an unpleasant take on modern refugee policy, but it is nevertheless a necessary take.
