Journey of Hope (1990)
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Journey of Hope Movie Review
Journey of Hope is a 1990 Swiss-Turkish drama film directed by Xavier Koller. It’s an uninspired, but still solid and moving flick.
It follows a Turkish family that tries to illegally emigrate to Switzerland. They face many hardships while traveling and upon arriving facing xenophobia. I say that it’s familiar because it most definitely is immensely similar to the film ‘Pelle the Conqueror’ which has already won an Oscar two years before.
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Now, the major difference here is that this movie is not as well shot as that Scandinavian flick, but it’s also not as long or as slow. Plus, I really liked how it’s not emotionally manipulative, but genuinely moving and subtle in some scenes. That’s why I found the two films on par with each other, but I still criticize this one for being so uninspired, even if it is dealing with different nations.
The characterization is also rather weak here. They are fine as a group and I definitely found them to be a realistic, strong family, but individually they are all underutilized, underdeveloped and simply not particularly memorable. The acting is very good though.
Journey of Hope is well shot, even if it’s not looking as great as ‘Pelle’. It’s also well scored and particularly professionally directed by Xavier Koller. I found personally the first half much more interesting than the expected second one as it became overlong and too sprawling in the journey itself plus the third act is overly climactic. But the realism and dialogue are both evident.
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In my opinion, Journey of Hope is a Turkish, not a Swiss movie so I do find the Academy’s view of the movie as Swiss troublesome to say the least. It’s at least a co-production, but it deals with Turks so it’s much more Turkish than Swiss. But anyway, it ended up winning the Oscar for foreign film against rather stiff competition which just goes to show that the Academy really favors sprawling, motivational dramas such as this one. It did not deserve its Oscar obviously.
Journey of Hope is pretty much a Turkish version of ‘Pelle the Conqueror’ meaning that it’s about the same subject matter (emigration and its hardships) and it also won an Oscar. It’s not as well shot, but it’s much less emotionally manipulative and it’s more engaging to watch. The dialogue and characters are also quite realistic. Still, the second half is somewhat uninvolving and the overall familiarity of its plot hurt the film in the long run.
