Article by Greta Maria Sorani

Translation by Francesca Corino

A woman lays motionless on a bed, seemingly lifeless. On top of her, a man, panting, abuses her. The second feature film by Lino Escalera, Hamburgo, opens with this violent image. After his debut with No sé decir adiós (2017), the Madrid-born director returns on the topics of drug addiction and loneliness by adopting the conventions and atmospheres of noir cinema.

Germán (Jaime Lorente) is a driver working for a criminal organization involved in sex trafficking in Costa del Sol. He is a man working in the shadows, an anti-hero living on the margins of society and part of a system that pretends not to see. The meeting with Alina (Ioana Bugarin), one of the victims, unsettles his beliefs. Even though Hamburgo recalls the 70s thriller’s aesthetic, Escalera does not quote the genre, but uses it as a political mean: if men are noir archetypes, Alina comes from the real world, her character is based on the testimonies of survivors of sex trafficking.

This contrast between fiction and documentary truth creates an emotional intensity that runs through the entire film, forcing the viewer to confront what society tries to erase. Filmed in Super 16mm, the movie depicts a Costa del Sol made of neon lights and degraded suburbs. Juana Jiménez’s photography turns the darkness into a dense substance that hides the most uncomfortable truths. The director adopts the features of the genre, but rejects any use of rhetoric and form of redemption, focusing on a moment of mutual recognition between two survivors. Germán and Alina come from distant worlds, both dehumanized by a reality that has hollowed them out from the inside. Nevertheless, they share the same wish: to escape, to reach “their own” Hamburg, an impossible alternative reality. The essence of the film comes out in their attempt to understand each other and to share a space for humanity: to accept the other is, in itself, a political act.