Unfinished sky (2007, Duncan)

[fizz]

I had a major gripe with ‘Unfinished sky’. Not only was it an aesthetically unremarkable film (from a script and directorial point of view), but it also featured an actress from the Netherlands in an entirely unconvincing role as an Afghan illegal refugee. If you are going to make a film with an Afghan protagonist, at least make sure that the person in the role fits it and looks the part. The way the character of Tahmeena is played by actress Monic Hendrickx was unconvincing. Its not that she performed badly, she was able to convey the fear of an illegal woman lost in a foreign land adequately, but I was never able to view her as an Afghani.

Her rapport with co star William McInnes, who finds her one day lying unconscious and bruised at his remote Australian outback habitat, though admirable, was never anything beyond the brisk rekindling of love that we’ve seen countless times before and the fish out of water sequences were familiarly bland. As the film progresses the two leads quickly grow attached, despite the hindrance that the lack of communication presents (she eventually becomes the ‘woman of the house)’. Amid this backdrop we get an out of place revelation about what happens to illegal immigrants when they end up in the wrong hands (think a very tame version of the excellent ‘Dirty pretty things’ from a few years ago). If a movie is going to be provocative and discuss exploitation, it should at least go some distance and anger us or make us clinch our fists. ‘Unfinished sky’ remains both pedestrian and predictable all the way to the end.

Rating: 1/5

[madali]

I guess, it must have been specially annoying if it was supposed to be about the hardships of an Aghani, and not even have the decency to put someone from that REGION in the role.