A MOMENT IN THE REEDS

Mikko Makela 2017 Finland United Kingdom 107min finnish & english s.-t.en.
Synopsis:
A Moment in the Reeds embodies the current renaissance in LGBTQ cinema, its widening of scope. Weaving the classic, insular tale of coming out with worldly issues of globalism, immigration, and racism, the film finds points of intersection in multiple struggles. Having escaped to Paris for university, Leevi (Janne Puustinen) returns home to Finland for the summer to help his struggling father (Mika Melender) renovate their summer cottage and contend with his repressive childhood. There, he meets the soft-spoken Tareq (played with aching subtlety by Boodi Kabbani), a Syrian refugee who gave up his career as an architect in his home country for the safe but reduced status of a handyman in Northern Europe. In scenes of simmering tension and eroticism, Leevi and Tareq connect under the watchful eye of Leevi’s father, and their shared humanity begins to heal their traumas, all the while threatening to tear them apart. The midsummer Finnish landscape acts as an exquisite framework for this quietly complex tale of colliding trajectories, which balances the explosive sexual chemistry of the film’s leads with equally combustible modern dilemmas. – Michael Belcher