HIS HOUSE

UK, 2020, 93 minutes, Colour.
Sope Dirisu, Wunmi Mosaku, Matt Smith.
Directed by Remi Weekes.

This is a British drama about refugees from South Sudan, the dangers, the turmoil, the boats, the crowding, the waves, people in the water, drownings.

The focus is on a couple who arrive, experience the death of a daughter, safe but in detention in the United Kingdom. Their cases reviewed. There is a jury deciding on all on their freedom, going to London, a flat for their own, but with strict conditions about maintaining it. The husband is eager to become part of UK society, singing football songs at the pub, get his wife to use cutlery… However, she dresses in traditional clothes, each with her hands, on the floor.

However, there are complications, not so much as regards migrants and migration itself but as regards African traditions, sense of solidarity, issues of deaths, spirits, hauntings. The husband, especially, is to tormented by apparitions, sounds, voices and creatures in the wall, the presence of a witch. He spends a lot of his energy combating these apparitions. His wife, on the other hand, becoming more alienate it, as an experience where she is back in Sudan, reliving her past, in the presence of women to whom she relates.

The situation becomes dire and the husband decides that they should move out of the house, going to see the panel, complaining of rats. However, there is a final confrontation with the witch, the wife eventually slitting his throat and freeing the couple.

They accept the house. They are seen standing – but a number of other refugees in the background.

1. The title? In London? Ball and his custody of the house? It is turning on him? His conquering?

2. The background of South sedan, uprisings, refugees, the crowds, the dangers, the boats, the waves, drownings?

3. Refugees in the UK, in detention, hearings, permissions, homes, conditions, strict?

4. The London settings, the offices, the house, dilapidation, the outside, the street, on the other flats? The maze of streets?

5. The special effects, the haunting of the house, the walls, the holes, the faces, the sounds, the floor opening? The presence of the witch, appearance, struggling with Ball? Caprio and her flashbacks to South Sudan? The crowds of women? The final appearance of the witch, the appearance of the dead girl? The final images of the crowds of refugees in the house?

6. And the drama of the refugees, the boats, the drowning, the mother and father not able to do anything? The girl, her death, later appearances and challenge? Ball and Rial and their feelings and guilt?

7. In detention, life, regulations, restrictions? The interview, happiness, the panel – and seeming disinterested? The granting of the house, the conditions?

8. In the house, free, their own? Ball and his reaction, fixing the house, accommodating to England, singing the football songs in the pub, using cutlery…? Rial and her clothing, resistance, eating with her hands? On the floor? The love between the two? The tensions?

9. Rial, going out into the street, the map, the maze of houses, the boy playing, the young British Africans and their reaction to her, telling her to go back home? Her bewilderment, the visit to the doctor?

10. The drama of the hauntings, the range, voices, lights, darkness, the walls, the faces, the intrusion of the creatures, bodies on the floor…? Ball and his reaction, stripping the wallpaper, searching? The psychological effect on him? Relationship with rial?

11. Her response, the house, not wanting to become English, wanting to go home, her fantasies, back in South sedan, reliving the past? The reassurance of the women?

12. Ball, wanting to move out of the house, the going to see the panel, rats in the house?

13. The drama, the final confrontation with a witch, rial cutting its throat?

14. Acceptance of the house, the panel, taking photos, the house in order, the couple standing there? The image of the other refugees? Their house?