Fremont: An Afghan Immigrant Looks for Her Right Place

Donya works for a Chinese fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. Formerly a translator for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, she struggles to put her life back in order. In a moment of sudden revelation, she decides to send out a special message in a cookie.

Review:

Fremont is a black and white drama about the dislocation of a recent Afghan immigrant, Donya (newcomer Anaita Wali Zaita). The film is the flip side of the deadpan comic sensibility of Jim Jarsmuch. Donya has eerie echoes of Eva (Eszter Balint), the straight forward seemingly emotionally flat Hungarian cousin whose arrival disrupts the order in Stranger Than Paradise.

Eva lives in Fremont, the Little Kabul that is home to the largest enclaves of Afghans in the United States. Donya feels dislocated, and her former work as a translator for the U.S. Army has left her with an undiagnosed or unacknowledged PTSD that leaves her frequently sleepless. She searches for community beyond her homeland and finds it in a San Francisco fortune cookie manufacturer with a mixture of Chinese emigres and native born white Americans. They maybe a dislocated and worn out bunch of outcasts and loners but they are capable of the compassion and change Donya is looking for.

Most of the action is revealed in conversations, a talk therapy experience that subs for the internalized emotions that come out in micro expressions. It’s not surprising that a psychiatrist is the main audience interpreter. Expressionist interludes capture the uncanny nature of social interactions among the displaced and disoriented. When Donya finally makes an emotional connection with a gentle mechanic played by Jeremy Allen White, the ask becomes both the film’s end and the start of a possible sequel. Fremont doesn’t want to leave the audience with a tear, just a knowing smile.

A first-time actor who fled Afghanistan in 2021, Wali Zada emits a natural warmth and poignancy as she delivers intentionally vacant line readings. This flattens some of the wryer scenes but makes Donya’s measured expressions of longing and hopefulness sing. She’s what makes the final act so moving and romantic.