Review
Safe Space
Finding a comfortable style, somewhere
between realism and expressionist, SAFE
SPACE is a film with a great deal to say on a
variety of subjects.
Set in a refugee camp in Berlin, the film deals
with a moral question. Well, several moral
questions really. An incident of, arguably,
misinterpreted sexual advance leads to a
debate, in which the victim, Sara
(MaelleGiovanetti), sits silent, while the fate
of her attacker/lover Patrick (GorgesOcloo)
is dealt with by the people who live within the
camp.
Ambiguous, and all the better for it, what we
see is minimal.
Sara and Patrick have clearly been having a
relationship, although we sense that it has
never been a physical one, until now, and
while we never see the act in question, just
the beginnings of it, the feeling one gets is
more of Sara wrestling with herself, than
with him.
(2014)
That said, its all about how you interpret
what you see, which is why the absence of
anything definitive is such a smart play on
the film makers part. This is a film about
shifting opinions, in a world where such
matters can be the difference between life
and death.
The setting proves remarkably relevant.
SAFE SPACE was filmed in 2014, and sets a
prescient tone, given the world we are
inhabiting at this moment in time. Refugee
camps are littered around Europe, and the
refugees themselves are both pitied and
damned in equal measure. The issue is
passionate, yet often the focus gets blurred,
lost in a political rhetoric, rather than a
question of humanity.
Boldly, director Zora Rux, who co-wrote the
screenplay with Christian Brecht, decides to
show as many sides as possible, and while the
film is only 13 minutes in length, they just
about pull this off.