Sleepless Nightmare
His House (2020) and Solidarity with Immigrants
By Aleyna Su Candemir, Aslıhan Durmazoglu, Damla Sener
His House is the tale of a Sudanese couple’s tragic and dark post-immigration process in Britain and reveals the shocking difficulties of immigration and war. Not only does it remind us that war is a crime against humanity but that the first-degree victims of war are often stripped of almost every human right and fundamental freedoms. Many are forced to make a choice between multiple nightmares including violence, torture, poverty, lack of education, healthcare and freedom in their homeland or alienation, otherization, and discrimination in a foreign country. Immigration is often not a choice; in many cases, it is the only way to survive.
Different than a classical haunted-house movie, His House combines the elements of supernatural horror with the horrors of the struggle for existence. The tragic story of couple begins with escaping from their homeland and seeking asylum in Britain. They bring along the trauma of war, guilt and desperation to their new home. The experience of war is inhumane and destructive to the utmost, but the treatment in Britain may become discriminatory and oppressive as well. For instance, an immigration officer warns Bol about being the “good ones” which shows that for an immigrant to be accepted is not an unconditional affair. Even though the family gets the chance to take shelter, there are so many rules and limitations that they should conform to and endure in order to keep the house. If we consider the couple’s nightmare of war, which we see in the flashback scenes, we can say that their nightmare has not ended but only has changed its form. Rial and Bol go through traumatic events and are forced to leave their land, but the physical violence in their past evolves into the psychological and social violence in their present. The first aggression they become subject to in their new neighborhood is committed by other black people which shows the unreasonable nature of discrimination.
The horrible experiences and traumas of immigration are not impossible for us to imagine, but experiencing it visually helps us empathize more effectively. We must remain loyal to the right of equality and freedom for every human being and act with solidarity. Wars and immigration often result from the violation of human rights such as human dignity, freedom, and peace. The chain of such violations causes us to pay a high price if it cannot be stopped. In today’s world, we need to establish solidarity with immigrants more than ever and we should focus on our survival in a collaborative manner.
