There’s a lot of talk about what it means to be a woman in Levan Akin’s lovely drama Crossing. ‘There was a time,’ laments stern Georgian auntie Lia (Mzia Arabuli), ‘when our women were refined’. Then again, admits this refined lady about her refined existence, ‘I have no future and no plans. I’m just here until I’m not.’
Many of her assumptions – and ours – are challenged throughout Akin’s intimate tale, in which Lia crosses from Batumi, her small village on the Black Sea, over to Istanbul to find Tekla, her trans niece. Tekla was kicked out years ago by her conservative father. Local rumours have suggested that she became a sex worker before disappearing. But the last request from her recently-deceased mother – Lia’s sister – was that Tekla be found and brought back to Batumi. And a final wish must be honoured, no matter how misguided others may think it to be.
Lia, an unapologetically intimidating former teacher, is joined on her quest by Achi (Lucas Kankava), a smart but aimless twentysomething determined to escape his own miserable, constrained life. He tells Lia that he has Tekla’s last known address, and off this mismatched pair go to Istanbul, where they cross paths with a range of other floating souls. Chief among these is trans advocate Evrim (Deniz Dumanli, a superstar in her first role), whose complex life is better left for viewers to discover.
It’s a heartbreaker in all the best ways
Actually, the same could be said for the entire movie, which writer-director Akin structures as a journey for characters and audience alike. Cinematographer Lisabi Fridell’s handheld camera is constantly moving: seeking out quiet corners in unhappy homes; wandering leisurely along crowded market streets; dancing with joy during celebratory nights. (The latter scenes recall Akin’s equally delicate 2019 triumph, And Then We Danced.)
The haunting Turkish songs that underscore these episodes are similarly adaptable, plaintive in one moment and exultant the next. The greatest discoveries of all, though, may be among the cast, who are mostly unknowns and are uniformly outstanding.
Crossing takes all of us down paths that even the shrewdly observant Lia would be unable to predict, but that she’d be the first to appreciate. It's a heartbreaker in all the best ways.
In UK and US cinemas Jul 19.