Fremont

If humor truly is tragedy plus time, then it should be no surprise that immigrant stories make up some of our best comedies. The past few years have offered us Ben Sharrock’s Limbo and Mohammed Amer’s popular Netflix series Mo, each exploring the culture of displaced communities in Western countries. In both cases, the pain of exile is gently undercut by a large cast of idiosyncratic characters and the faintest flicker of hope.

While Babak Jalali’s Fremont may look like California’s answer to early Jim Jarmusch, it shares much of the same tragicomic DNA as its 21st-century counterparts. In Fremont, we meet Donya (Wali Zada), a former civilian translator who fled Afghanistan before the return of the Taliban. Donya is caught between worlds – her cooperation with the United States military has made her something of an outcast within the Fremont Afghan community, but her estrangement from family and country brings her endless suffering.

But unlike characters from other refugee stories, Donya’s limbo is emotional, not legal. She is free to work in America – she writes intentionally boring fortunes at a local fortune cookie factory – but Donya shies away from friends or relationships in a form of self-punishment. When she begins to speak with a therapist (Turkington) who likens her plight to that of Jack London’s White Fang, she is quick to volunteer the similarities between their two stories. She knows it’s what he wants to hear, even if there is some uncomfortable truth in the parallels he draws forth.

The stakes are small in Fremont, which makes it hard to imagine the film without the brittle performance by newcomer Wali Zada. The actress, who herself evacuated Afghanistan mere months before being cast in the movie, is a natural onscreen, able to navigate the series of half-absurd encounters that mark Donya’s immigrant experience. There are moments where Fremont can lean a bit too far in the direction of Miranda July-esque eccentricity – admittedly, not always its strongest gear – but Wali Zada is always there to anchor these scenes in a genuine, desperate need for interpersonal connection.

As Donya slowly opens herself up to the thought of moving past her trauma – of allowing time to soften her tragedies – she embraces small acts of self-reliance within the Afghan diaspora and her Fremont community. And when the film winds down with a chance encounter with a local mechanic (White) who seems to share her own careful isolation, Fremont reminds us that our pains in life need not be overcome or forgotten. Sometimes, they just live with us a little, even as we seek the love we each deserve.