Film Review : Oskar And Lilli: Where No One Knows Us (2020) | OUT OF FRAME
One of cinema’s great achievements is sharing the stories and voices from all across the world, to expand the glimpses that we can have of the totality of the human experience. Unfortunately, such an ability brings with it the burden of the real world; which is to say, not every human life living is a good one.
Arash T. Riahi’s Oskar And Lilli: Where No One Knows Us (Ein bisschen bleiben wir noch) wastes no time in putting the audience into such a desperate worldview. The titular siblings and their mother, who are refugees from the hotly contested region of Chechnya, are about to be deported back from their asylum in Austria. Through a desperate act, they are instead separated and placed into different fosters, with Oskar and Lilli needing to find their own way in navigating their turbulent situation.
The Refugee Crisis: Director Arash T. Riahi’s Personal Story
It did not surprise me that Oskar And Lilli’s subject matter was born from a highly personal place; director Arash T. Riahi is himself an Austrian child of refugees. While the film is a professional production, there is an underlying rawness to the scenarios and circumstances that Oskar and Lilli go through that could only have come forth from a place of deep understanding. Further still, that pain was channeled through Leopold Pallua and Rosa Zant as Oskar and Lilli respectively, who are utterly convincing in their debut roles here. As their forced separation gets longer and longer, the tether that had tied them together slowly losing its ironclad grip, we see how their shared tragedy and trauma evolves in different ways; Lilli the older sister is able to create new connections with her foster mother, and is more accepting of her new life, while Oskar the younger brother shows an understanding of world’s grimness far beyond his years, and yet displays a childlike logic in his decision-making—expressing a youthful sense of hope that he has towards his bleak reality.
A Glimmer of Hope in a Bleak World
On initial watch this discrepancy appeared somewhat confusing, then it occurred to me that this was almost certainly what Arash intended. Oscar and Lilli’s situation is, above all else, in a state of conflict. Conflict at the new people around them, their environment, and within themselves. At the heart of the film lies an unrelenting series of conflicts that mirror the harsh realities faced by refugees—and knowing that such stories persist globally unsettles the soul too.
However, there is a ray of hope shining through their story. Oskar and Lilli, despite the “threat” of being torn from their birth family and their roots, ultimately decide to return and stand up against the cruel system that had forced their separation. It is an inspiring conclusion that deviates from the cliche—that is to antagonise the siblings’ foster families. Though the film is ultimately critical of their selfish decisions, the foster families are not portrayed as irredeemable nor insidious. They are flawed but never malicious, which makes Oskar and Lilli’s final scene all the more poignant. There can be a happy ending there, where they come to accept their new reality whilst forgetting their past, but they refuse to choose one that was forced upon them.
Overall, Arash T. Riahi has created a film from his heart. It is a pained film, discomforting but never uneasy, showcasing a tact that is able to let it rise above being deemed exploitative. With a weaker script Oskar and Lili might have worked less as fully fleshed out characters and more just avatars for the director to hoist real-world tragedies onto. It is an intrinsic part of their characters, but it is a relief then that that is not the case. The region of Chechnya has had a history of conflicts dating back to the 19th century, or even earlier, and to this day remains an active military zone. Oskar And Lilli provides a straightforward, bleak but ultimately still hopeful outlook on those who were able to escape this turbulent history, but who remained rooted to it regardless.
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About the Film Critic:
Wei Li Heng is an avid lover of uncovering and writing about obscure and underseen Asian cinema. He hopes to discover local cinematic gems and share them to a wider audience.
Follow-> Letterboxd: @weiliheng / Instagram: @william_wei_li_heng
