Somali fishers of men
By Daniel Nelson
Fishing Without Nets is an adventure Image by Fishing Without Nets
Fishing Without Nets
Abdi shuns the lure of cash offered by the ship-capturers and hostage-takers, because he wants an honest and honourable life. But the reality is “our nets are coming up empty”. He has to borrow money, and emigration seems the best option.
His wife and young son take to the road to Yemen (“We have to take a chance”), and he plans to follow. But he is approached by a pirate group who want to use his knowledge of shipping lanes and he gradually and nervously falls in with them.
It’s a fateful step. Suddenly the pirates, gripping their Kalashnikovs, are gunning the motor of their raiding craft and bouncing across the waves and onto the high seas, in search of booty.
It’s Captain Phillips territory, last year’s thrill-a-minute adventure yarn based on the 2009 hijacking of the ‘Maersk Alabama’ and starring Tom Hanks. That film put a high-tension focus on the personal battle between the ship’s captain and the rebel leader. In Fishing Without Nets most of the drama focuses on divisions between the pirates, as they become increasingly agitated about the protracted negotiations, which are carried out by wheeler-dealers higher up the chain.
In one scene, the gang tries to sell a French crewman with whom Abdi has struck up a rudimentary relationship – or at least recognises another human being in a predicament – to another group of hostage-takers. The prospective buyer examines his eyes and teeth and general state of health exactly as white slave-owners in the US did.
The threat posed to the prisoner by the khat-chewing, petrol-sniffing dissident gang member who is fearful of drones racks up the tension, which is already high thanks partly to the background music, but the film at least gives one of the Somali characters a human face, even if his relationship with his wife is treated with a misty-eyed romanticism. The opening scenes in the village are filmed like a documentary, complete with Abdi’s poetic voiceover. Then the action kicks in and the film becomes more conventional.
As the drama increases – will the money be dropped from the sky and the hostages released or will the pirates’ jitteriness lead to catastrophe? – our hero’s worst fears are realised and he finds that his dreams are jeopardised by the actions of others. He’s not a bad guy but his failure to stick to his principles has led him to naively stake all and lose all.
A twist of fate suddenly raises the possibility of redemption: surely not… he can’t… Then one final plot twist changes the outcome again.
· Fishing Without Nets is screening as part of the London Film Festival on 14 October at the Cine Lumiere (9pm) and on 19 October (1pm) at the Ritzy.
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