NewsBytes Recommends: 'Amsterdam to Anatolia'—raw exploration of mature love
Susan Youssef's Amsterdam to Anatolia is an incredibly powerful piece of filmmaking, one that has stayed with me for years after I first watched it. Measured, confident, empathetic, raw, and fiercely humane, this six-minute short has a minimal runtime, two to three characters, and only a handful of dialogues, and yet, its sensitivity shines through every frame. It's streaming on Netflix.
Story of Marwan and Elissa
It focuses on the aforementioned star-crossed lovers, whose fate hangs in the balance. Theirs isn't just another love story trying to combat conservatism and find footing, but there's also a world of difference between their cultures, backgrounds, and perhaps, religions. Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Anatolia (Turkey) couldn't be more different, after all. Can a love like that survive in a world determined to slaughter it?
We warm upto the characters in no time
There are films that exhaust the two-hour-long runtime and yet aren't successful in making us feel for the characters but ATA does it remarkably despite its short runtime. We don't know these characters up close per se, but surprisingly, it's still not difficult for us to understand how they must have met and how real, mature, and warm love would have flourished between them.
Makes us sympathize with Elissa
ATA establishes Elissa through just one dialogue and one look at her face (it's half covered due to bruises, so you immediately know she is the victim of marital abuse). Also remarkable is how we begin to care for them almost instantly; when someone knocks at their car's door, you immediately feel scared even though you have known them only for select few minutes.
Pay close attention to the beginning and ending
The film starts and ends with similar scenes, with the final scene imploring us to wonder what happened with Marwan after he got ruthlessly beaten up by, presumably, Elissa's husband. Their love and longing intensifies in that scene and Elissa's expressions tell us that perhaps their love was all a dream, and their union is never meant to be. In that, it mirrors real-life.
Watch it on Netflix
The film's ending is not served to us on a platter and we are invited into this fictional world where we can have our own interpretation. Did they have a happy ending? Or were they torn apart? Eventually, you're forced to ponder: She ran away from her abusive husband's home, but will she escape patriarchy that will chase her down to hell? Hopefully, someday.
