Georgian-Swedish Filmmaker Levan Akin's Crossing: A Procedural With a Few Twists

CROSSING 

(Levan Akin, Sweden, 2024, 106 minutes) 

Lia (actress and composer Mzia Arabuli) is a woman on a mission in Crossing, the fourth feature from Georgian-Swedish filmmaker Levan Akin (And Then We Danced, Sweden's official Oscar submission for 2020). She isn't a police officer or a detective, but rather a retired history teacher dedicated to finding her trans niece (Tako Kurdovanidze) and bringing her home. It was her late sister's dying wish. 

She starts by visiting the cottages where Tekla was last seen. A former student who lives in Batumi suggests she was a prostitute, but Lia doesn't raise an eyebrow, indicating that she knew or suspected as much. Achi (Lucas Kankava), his younger half brother, provides an address for Tekla, claims he knows a little Turkish--she doesn't know any--and offers to accompany Lia to Istanbul. Mostly, he wants to get away from Georgia. 

To Achi's older brother, this serious-looking, deep-voiced woman is "classy and refined." Achi, who appears to be in his late-teens, is the exact opposite. He smokes too much, drives too fast, and likes to mouth off, but he isn't a bigot; he considered fellow smoker Tekla a friend. Lia agrees to take him on as a travel partner if he promises to avoid booze and drugs. She claims she has no desire to take care of him--but she just can't help herself. 

 

The unlikely duo travels by train, bus, ferry, and walks up and down cobblestone streets, finally arriving at a red light district populated by trans sex workers, but there's no Tekla to be found. Lia resolves to knock on every door until she finds her. In the meantime, they crash at a hostel with paper-thin walls.

Not far from the hostel, a stylish, outgoing trans woman named Evrim (Deniz Dumanli) sets out to secure her female identification card. There's no indication that she's Tekla under a different name, not least since she's five years older, and speaks fluent Turkish. One night, she ends up at the same party as Achi, but they don't connect, though she will connect, in a manner of speaking, with a handsome college student who drives a cab on the side. 

With Achi out partying, Lia grudgingly looks for Tekla on her own, except she can't understand what anyone is saying, so the trans women in the area do what they can to communicate that they don't know Tekla. One woman even sings her a song. Meanwhile, her odd-couple relationship with Achi waxes and wanes. There's a sense that there's more to their collective journey than meets the eye. Achi, for instance, told Lia that his mother lives in Istanbul, and yet he never mentions her after they arrive, even though he has no money (she pays for everything). Nor does he speak any Turkish. 

Their fortunes change when they meet Ramaz (Levan Gabrichidze), an avuncular Georgian business owner. With some raki, a potent Turkish brandy, in her, Lia becomes a completely different person; frisky and flirtatious, but also quick to anger. Their fortunes change yet again when they finally meet Evrim, who works as a lawyer for an LGBTQ non-profit. She knows who to ask about Tekla, and where to go to find her--assuming she wants to be found. 

 

I won't say if they find her, if they solve the mystery of Achi's mother, and whether or not any of the Georgian individuals in the film return to their home country, but Akin's previous film, And Then We Danced, also involved an individual, a gay ballet dancer, struggling to live as his authentic self in a country with little tolerance for that kind of thing. If Akin, an openly gay filmmaker whose parents emigrated from Georgia, hadn't grown up in Sweden, it's possible he wouldn't have been able to make it at all. 

What I will say is that Crossing isn't about being trans. If it was, we would learn more about Tekla, who left Georgia, because she didn't feel welcome. After exploring Istanbul's red light district, Lia laments that she "chose this life." Achi counters that she probably didn't have much of a choice.

 

Though Kanjav and Dumanli are newcomers, they hold their own against the stern, watchful Arabuli, who lights up the screen whenever she lets her guard down. 

Lia isn't the most expressive character, but that's kind of the point. She's keeping a lot inside, like the fact that she's incredibly lonely, especially without her sister. If the purpose of the trip was to find Tekla, her last living relative, it's also about understanding why her niece would leave the only home she ever knew--and how Lia may have played a part in her departure.

I could have done without the cute street urchins that Evrim takes under her wing, and it's also clear, possibly too clear, that she's meant to stand in opposition to Tekla as a trans woman who feels at home in the world--even if that world isn't as welcoming as it could be. Akin reveals the microaggressions she deals with on a daily basis, and how blithely she ignores them, but it must get tiring. I've seen friends go through something similar, and it's hard to watch. Death by a thousand paper cuts is real.  

As for Crossing overall, there are false starts and dead ends, and not everything works, but Lia and Achi make for a very compelling team, and Akin never plays their differences for easy laughs. There are also a lot of cats, and though I doubt it was the director's intention, they're the one species in the film that never judges. When Evrim meets with a doctor in the process of getting her new ID, he gives her the evil eye for no reason other than prejudice, and yet while she's waiting in the lobby before her appointment, two cute cats amble over to show her love. Cats just get it.

For a deeper dive, please see Michael Wood's spoiler-filled piece in London Review of Books. You may have to register to read, but LRB is worth it.  

Crossing opens at the Uptown on Fri, Aug 9. Images from Rotten Tomatoes and The Los Angeles Times (Lucas Kankava and Mzia Arabuli / Ozan Acidere), Gay Times (Deniz Dumanli and friends), and Variety (Arabuli).