Antigone (Sophie Deraspe, 2019): Canada

Reviewed by Saman David Mansourian. Viewed at the AFI Fest 2019.

Written and directed by Sophie Deraspe, Antigone attempts to re-create the classical greek tragedy by exploring a series of heart-wrenching events that are signified by the intersectionality of current social issues in immigration and police brutality. Antigone (Nahéma Ricci), decides to takes justice into her own hands after a police intervention that results in the unjust treatment of her brothers. Étéocle (Hakim Brahimi), the oldest brother, is brutally shot and killed by the police, and Polynice (Rawad El-Zein), with a previous record of other crimes, is a victim of an exaggerated arrest and prosecution of assaulting a police officer with the inevitable consequence being deportation to his home country.

As a teenager, Antigone is powerless to the social institutions which dictates the functionality of the society she is participating in. A developed criminal justice system with dignified courts involving partial human beings whose main goal are to conduct proper justice cannot be argued against; after all she could have been in a worse country than Canada. Antigone possesses incredible strength, integrity, morality, and is clearly committed to herself and whatever she believes in. She values loyalty to family above all else, and her unconditional love for her brother, Polynice, permits her to act with courage as she treats people of authority as her equals, addressing them exactly the way that she feels addressed by them. Unsurprisingly, this does not bode well, and the movie contrasts reality properly when the fragile ego’s of authority figures are hurt by a free spoken young adult. With her horrible background which led the remains of her family to emigrate to Canada, it is easy to emphatize with Antigone’s, courageous, but also ignorant approach to challenge the current social justice systems. Although she never intends to become a social justice symbol, she is encouraged to emphasize her heroic intentions by her lawyer which generates further sympathy with the following she gained throughout her court case.

I believe that Deraspe wanted to depict a grueling but frequently occurring reality. The story of poorly integrated immigrants segregated from the rest of the population is a common story in many countries today, and it is not going to stop anytime soon. These areas have higher crime rates, and instead of attributing part of the blame on the lack of strategic competence by politicians, the immigrants that become criminals (who should never be exempt from blame for their actions) are labeled as thugs who will never contribute anything to society which causes an even greater division and segregation among the population. This sort of miscommunication will not cease to exist anytime soon as it is much easier to villainize a group of people rather than thinking deeper about a problem. Heuristics and biases that are present in every single human being gives an easy way out for us when faced with complex problem solving, and especially for people already pre-occupied with the struggles of their own lives where empathy is rarely top priority. It is not a conscious effort to be bad, but merely simple programming executed by our brains. This miscommunication inevitably cultivates a reality that is not fully “real”, consequently, leading to unnecessarily putting people before the criminal justice system who may not deserve it. These heuristics and biases are also one of the reasons why Étéocle was unjustly killed by police, an example that can be seen in many cases in real life.

It is important to highlight that this movie is not a true tragedy. The movie is to, an extent, a portrayal of reality. In the classical greek play, neither salvation nor retribution is available for the characters as relentless destruction is the fate for everyone involved. Deraspe’s adaptation does instead allow for the original antagonists to take the high road. Neither Antigone or Haemon commits suicide, and Haemon’s father, conveniently named “Christian” instead of Creon ends up being one of the good guys. One could very easily conclude that no character got what they wanted, but this is subjective to the perspective of the viewer. For example, the terrible events that Antigone and her family had to go through which resulted in the split of her already broken family allowed her to cultivate a close and tight relationship with Haemon. It helped her get to know herself better, as well as her sister. It also helped Christian to get to know Haemon better. Antigone was handed more perspective than she already possessed as a first generation immigrant, and was forced to grow up a little bit earlier than her peers in her view of the world. In a perfect world, none of this would have happened, and Anitgone’s stubborn courage would never be necessary. But we do not live in a perfect world, and there will always be issues facing people. Antigone’s actions provided inspiration to young adults all over Quebec which generated a social movement in favor of providing her with the justice that she “deserved”. It is integrity in spite of adversity that is the light in the darkness. It is the inspiration that many people feel when listening to, for example, Malala. As long as people genuinely attempt to identify what the right thing is to do, and tries their best to live a virtuous life, it does not matter if they get it fully right or not. It is intention that matters – and even though Antigone’s actions were flawed, she did possess the correct intention of genuinely wanting to do good.

Although the story was enticing, there were times when scenes were exaggerated and too dramatic. By the end of the movie, I was getting tired of Antigone’s extreme screaming and crying. Ricci did an amazing job and showed what great of an actor she is, but they could have toned that down a bit. Apart from this, Deraspe did a fantastic job with recruiting, as all actors and actresses did great. This movie made me feel a lot of intense emotions, with all the great performances being main reason.