‘Yunan’ Review: A Writer In Exile Finds Solace On A Storm-Tossed German Island in Ameer Fakher Eldin’s Atmospheric Drama – Berlin Film Festival

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Opening a film with a line of poetry is always a problematic way to start: the words are quickly forgotten once the visuals begin, making the verses far more meaningful were they before the final credits.

In the case of Yunan, the words come from the Abbasid poet Al-Mutanabbi and they speak of craving a person’s presence, yet even when together, “the distance will still linger between us.” It’s an apt line for the film, both in terms of the inability of the main character to bridge both metaphorical and physical distances, and in the way Ameer Fakher Eldin’s atmospheric sophomore feature keeps the audience at a certain remove, refusing clear-cut explanations or simple emotional catharses.

Suffused with a melancholy as saturated as the damp air of the North Sea, Yunan follows on from Fakher Eldin’s ultimately more affecting debut The Stranger with its exploration of another facet of exile and belonging, this time set on a flood-prone German island that exists in a perpetual struggle between evanescence and permanence.

The title should not be confused with the Chinese province Yunnan; in this case, Yunan is the Arabic name for Jonah (also known as Yunus), the prophet swallowed up and spit out by the sea beast, transformed and yet the same, much like the sparse island of Langeness where much of the film is set.