Perhaps only the “no illegal aliens” governor of Arizona would be unmoved by the plight of a single mom fighting deportation in the powerful Belgian drama “Illegal.”
She’s Tania, who taught French back in her homeland, Belarus, before sneaking into Belgium with her young son.
She’s picked up by cops in a routine street check (the boy escapes) and is tossed into a center where men, women and children await possible deportation.
It’s a grim place, where beatings, body-cavity searches and suicides are routine, and it is nearly impossible to maintain one’s dignity. Tania refuses to give her name or any other personal information, figuring that she can’t be sent back home if authorities don’t know who she is.
They can’t even check her fingerprints because one drunken night she burned her fingertips in anticipation of such a turn of event. Her plan works for a while, but she reveals all when she’s threatened with jail, which would be even worse than where she already is.
Anne Coesens, wife of the film’s director, Olivier Masset-Depasse, gives a strong performance as Tania, who stands up to mental and physical abuse to avoid going back to Belarus.
The supporting cast also does well, especially Esse Lawson as an African woman who’s beaten by authorities when she repeatedly fights being put aboard a plane to take her back to Mali.
“Illegal” will give people on both sides of the immigrant debate something to think about.