Midnight Traveler
“Midnight Traveler” is a documentary, but it’s also a work of creative necessity for its director, Hassan Fazili. In 2015, the Taliban called for his death, causing his family to be displaced from their home, and make their way, like many people have from war-torn Middle Eastern countries, to Europe. Fazili is a filmmaker, whom also opened an art cafe in his home town, and made a film about a Taliban commander who was later killed. He is documenting his family’s trip on cell phones, and it acts not just as a document of their journey, but something Fazili needs to do to feel some sense of normalcy in his life.
The film begins with the words of one of his daughters, who recites some passages from a book her father was reading. That is set to images of children on amusement park swings, and the disparity between the happiness in the images, and the haunting reality about humanity’s nature in the words sets the tone well as we catch up with Fazili and his family on the first day of their trip, in Tajikistan, where they first seek passage to Europe. And then, a 3500 mile trip to Europe begins in clandestine fashion, across borders, hiding from police, and eventually, finding themselves in camps in Bulgaria and Serbia, waiting for the day their name might be called. And how do you begin to build a life for your family when you don’t know where you will end up?
Almost fittingly, I watched this film on my phone, and that provided an interesting lens into perspective for Fazili’s film. It felt like it was unfolding on the screen, as it did in real life, and while it’s no doubt a compelling watch on any screen you view it on, something about seeing it in a way comparable to how it was shot was interesting. What matters most to this film, however, is how it brings us the modern immigrant experience. This isn’t the romanticized experience of landing at Ellis Island, but a harrowing and dangerous journey to a land that is not your own, being met with skepticism by how you look, and flat-out hatred elsewhere, as when Fazili’s family is in Bulgaria as the Nationalist Party takes control. Some of the details will not be new if you’ve seen them on the news or online, but the personal way in which Fazili chronicles his own journey, which lasts for almost 600 days over three calendar years, is what makes this so much more than just a journalistic piece; we see the impact on families. The impact of the journey itself; the ways people who claim to want to help them can take advantage of a situation; the ways children can cope (one of Fazili’s daughters listens to Michael Jackson, and the songs we hear- “Black or White” and “They Don’t Care About Us”- are powerful reflections of how people in Fazili’s position feel the world treats them), and the way something like a daughter missing for an hour can cause complicated ideas to infect a father’s thinking. Moments like this are the value of a document like “Midnight Traveler,” which can bring us closer to others not like ourselves in a way that only cinema is capable of.
