Toronto: The Party’s Over directed by Elena Manrique is a black comedy that shows the underbelly of immigration.
The Shed
by Alexa DalbyThe Party’s Over
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
A Senegalese immigrant Bilal (Edith Martínez Val) arrives by boat at night in southern Spain and hides in the garden shed of a mansion to avoid the Guardia Civil. The garden belongs to rich divorcée Carmina (Sonia Barba), who discovers Bilal, treats him like a new pet and won’t let him leave to join his cousin in Marseilles. The shed that began as a haven becomes a prison. It’s a situation like an Ionesco or Joe Orton play.
Unknown to Carmina, her housekeeper Lupe (Beatriz Ajorna) also finds Bilal: but she discovers that Bilal is really a girl (Binta) and they find working-class solidarity together, in a way that capricious, controlling Carmina cannot.
But Binta cannot stand Carmina’s parties, her friends and the drink and drugs, and she longs to escape.
The Party’s Over is a tense black comedy that economically explores attitudes to Black Africans, the gamut of racism and immigration into Europe through an unexpected situation. It seems that Black immigrants are tolerated, even encouraged, as long as they can be patronised and do not pose a threat. The party that is over could be the morning after one of Carmina’s indulgently luxurious soirées, the end of unthinking ignorance or the end of Europe’s prosperous self-isolation. The film asks if anything will change in future or will it all revert to what was the status quo?
Elena Manrique is an original new talent. Spain is strongly represented at TIFF2024.
The Party’s Over premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September 2024. International representation is by The PR Factory.
