The film opens with the image of a road passing beneath
us, the divided white line in the center of the screen. Ibra (Adil Koukouh), a
young and attractive man, is hitchhiking – unsuccessfully – and it begins to
rain. The camera focuses on Ibra, not on the road or what he sees. And when he enters
a convenience store, the focus remains on him, with the other people out of
focus in the background until a woman confronts him. It is that moment that the
reality of other people becomes concrete, almost like it intrudes on the
private, interior life of this man. The woman accuses him of shoplifting, but
another young man in the store comes to his rescue, paying for the item and
also accusing the woman of discrimination. “We’re
Arabs, so we’re thieves?” he says. The tables turn, and the two women are
now on the defensive. This opening scene does quite a lot. It introduces Ibra
as a rather innocent and naïve man, shows there is racial tension in the area,
and also establishes the tone. In this scene, other characters do most of the
talking, and interestingly that will be the case for most of the film, except
when Ibra and Rafa are alone together.
We next see Ibra in the bathroom of a club, the somewhat
muted dance beat audible from the other room. He and another young man, Rafa
(Germán Alcarazu) exchange glances, but no words. And soon both try to stop a
fight on the dance floor, apparently caused by Rafa’s friends, picking fights
with Arabs. Rafa is teased about his attraction to Marta, a young woman in his
school. Rafa is shown as thoughtful and quiet, in contrast to his friends. We
likewise see Ibra in contrast to those people he spends time with (he doesn’t
consider them friends), people who may be trouble. However, Ibra and the others
are genuinely at risk of being harassed, even deported by the authorities, as a
raid at their youth center clearly shows. So the friendship between Ibra and
Rafa is set against a background of racial injustice.
The film keeps us fairly close to the characters, without
the use of establishing shots to give us a sense of place, and so we rely on the
characters to guide us through their world. It forces us to pay closer
attention to them. There are some strange cuts in this film, as when Rafa is
suddenly shown running to catch up with Ibra, a scene that seems to come out of
nowhere. This is the scene where they finally officially meet, and they talk
about a game in which they were opponents, a game which we haven’t seen. But
interestingly, we do see it later. The film jumps around in time a bit, and
later we see the moment just before this scene, with Rafa getting out of his
father’s car to run over to Ibra. It’s also interesting how scenes often seem
to be cut short, right at a point when things might be escalating, like when a
punch is thrown or when the police show up, almost as if to avoid external
conflict and keep the focus on the main characters. But as I mentioned, the
film also plays a bit with time, rearranging scenes, and so sometimes the
abrupt cuts result.
What I love is that the film takes its time to let their
relationship develop. The film is in no rush, which I appreciate. This is
really about first love, not about first sex. The two leads turn in excellent
performances, and this film has a quiet beauty. The only real distraction for
me is that when Rafa gets text messages from Marta, they appear as pop-ups on
screen, which is annoying. There is nothing less interesting than watching
people send text messages and emails. Plus, later when Rafa gets another text
message, that one doesn’t appear on screen, so it’s inconsistent. This, of
course, is a minor complaint. Hidden Away is an engaging and wonderful film,
and it feels important here in the U.S. now, when we have a president who hates
immigrants and wants to build a wall to keep people out.
Hidden Away was
directed by Mikel Rueda, and was released on DVD on July 14, 2015 through TLA
Releasing. The film is presented in Spanish, with English subtitles. The DVD
contains the film’s trailer, but no other special features.
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