REVIEW
Passion and D Deserted (director Kadri Kõusaar, 2021) is one of those domestic full-length feature films that reached cinema distribution after the war started in Ukraine in February 2022. The film allows the audience to escape to a more beautiful world than today, and at the same time the medium of film makes it possible to forward a wider message, or a nobler objective.
T
he film, set in the Sinai Desert, is a love story with a political background, in an imperceptibly far and exotic Middle East; where there is tension between Zionists and Islamists, as well as European and Arabic worldviews. The events in the film bring the viewer back to the comparatively “peaceful” prewar era, when European countries were troubled by refugees arriving from Northern Africa. Newsfeeds featuring Yemen, Jor-
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ESTONIAN FILM
Ink Big! The critics have done their job
dan or Syria. Yet Kõusaar’s film is not political – the PK machine gun and photo camera are but attributes that also bear a symbolic personal meaning while being opposed to each other. Swedish photographer Ingrid (Frida Westerdahl) is taken hostage by extremist Islamists while photographing daily life in the Middle East. She is made to spend her days in a desert hideaway under the surveillance of good-hearted Ali (Ali Suliman). Having exposed problematic scenes in the
FRIDA WESTERDAHL ALI SULIMAN FIRAS TAYBEH MAGNUS KREPPER JESSICA GRABOWSKY
A FILM BY
KADRI KÕUSAAR
DESERTED
AET LAIGU, CHARLOTTE MOST & MARIA LARSSON GUERPILLON, MERJA RITOLA & ESSI HAUKKAMAA PRESENT KADRI KÕUSAAR, CINEMATOGRAPHER STEN-JOHAN LILL, ESC, EDITOR MENNI RENVALL, SOUND DESIGNER JOONAS JYRÄLÄ, COSTUME DESIGNER ANU GOULD, MAKE-UP ARTISTS FARAH JADAANE & BILL HAZZAM, 3D ARTIST ROBERT LANDES, COMPOSER BJ NILSEN
PRODUCERS
WRITER & DIRECTOR
Deserted By Tõnu Karjatse First published in Eesti Ekspress
