I love how this movie pulled off something that other gay films have difficulty with. Like the movie "Weekend". It is when a movie tries to make sense of two stranger meeting each other for the first time, and for some reason they found a spark and voila~ love begins. This movie was casual in painting that narrative that it just flows and you just left drifted with it, no qualm, no questions because the way their lives collide, the small talks, the stolen glances are real. And the three recurring actors appearing the screen makes more sense, comes to life from how well they act. Even the old lady neighbor is a treat.
There's so many things to appreciate from this film, other than the fact that it makes you feel present there, in that same moment, same energy, same world, even you're worlds apart watching it.
A Moment in the Reeds was honest in portraying conflicted characters of father and son relationship, being an immigrant, being a university student, being a son, being away, hating the world, hating life, and the endless tug of war of those emotions versus other people's realities that ripples to you, changing your state of mind and dissuading those emotions. For example, Leevi doesn't know that his own home could feel different again because a sudden person changed that.
I feel like each person in the world has their own "A Moment in the Reeds" kind of experience, when an unexpected life event or a person, just makes you feel something special in some way, even it's in the cabin, old house, a bar, or whatever. Those moment can come to you in a lightning, popping to your head in loop, rewinding without missing a bit of detail from that feeling, a moment. In fact, I believe the setting itself: a worn-out house, an almost remote countryside village, and a time-stopping lakeview and autumn reeds, sums up something that will make a moment...moment.
The message weaved in the film are so subtle and deep not rubbing in your face that it's about homophobia or racism, or any kindred of hatred that's present in some LGBTQ films, but its more than that. Its' about denial, acceptance, the ugly truth of reality, the consequences of our decisions, and the ache of not having a view of our future.
The way it ends is a cesspool for negative interpretations, but the future already leads you from their previous dialogues. When Leevi said after he finishes his study, there's nothing holding him in Paris but also crushed from the fact that, there is nothing left for him in the countryside. And Tareq said "I will not view this place the way you view it, this is my home now". Those exchange of ideals shows two extremes of opposing conundrums that shoves anything in its way.
It means that, the answer to the question 'what happens after the ending' is simple. That's it. There's nothing for them to be. Leevi will for sure venture his life and Tareq will continue building his rough life but new home, Finland. The movie belongs to that moment, their moment. Nothing else. And that's what make it so poignant and gripping, how people don't hold the choice that the world can throw to them, that we are driven by forces we cannot control.
Tareq and Leevi's lives intertwined at the right place at the wrong time, but at least it left them both with one special, timeless, forever living moment.
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