I followed this slow moving tale to the end.
This film is a psychological investigation into the character of a war photographer. The depths of emotion portrayed by Catherine Keener, both through her character's body language and through her character's not taking very seriously things that would normally matter a lot, is central to the movie. And that's "slow" ...especially if you're expecting something different. Advertising this film as a "thriller", and implying the story matters a whole lot, was misleading (and IMHO a bad idea).
She reveals that her partner Mark is shot in the head because she wouldn't stop talking. What happens then?
They had both been captured. They were tortured (her broken rib and fractured jaw). She eventually got traded for her freedom, which we see at the very beginning of the film when she comes out of a building and gets in a car and is badly hounded by a whole bunch of press.
It showed her making a phone call & announcing that she was "back in New York".
The "I'm back" part was completely accurate, and meaningful to us viewers. She meant she had worked through her breakdown and was "back" ready to go to work on another assignment.
The "in New York" part was a complete fabrication, intended to provide cover for her to do something illegal (help Hafsia get into France). She could say "I wasn't even here, just ask my colleagues in the U.S."
Then it shows her with the gal who wanted an abortion.
Given the timing -and her comment about the boat being "bad"- quite possibly Hafsia was raped on the boat. Another possibility: she made a "sex for smuggling" deal with the carpet seller, but he reneged on his part of the deal (smuggling her into France) and left her pregnant.
Why & how was the girl there with her?
The girl looked like the same one Lee had photographed in Libya. (I got the impression she wasn't really the same person, but I'm not certain about that.) Lee followed her several times and eventually won her trust. (Initially Hafsia wouldn't even talk to Lee.)
Why did she run off in the final scene.
Most likely it means Hafsia decided to return to Libya rather than try to get into France.
I'm not sure though, as it wasn't obvious to me where the boats were going (or even what city the port was in), and as still being in Sicily doesn't make sense to me because of the apparently very long drive to get there.
(If the Straight of Messina bridge existed, driving to France would have been straightforward. Even without the bridge, taking the car across on a ferry and then continuing to drive all the way to France was probably reasonable.)
What happened & what does all this mean?
Hafsia and Lee had partially "healed" each other psychologically (that's the main arc of the movie).
When Lee became aware of what was going on, she didn't try to stop Hafsia, but rather just photographed her leaving. It seems to me this has a double meaning. One meaning is this is Lee's way of saying "goodbye" - she's claimed all along that she "knew" the people she'd photographed, suggesting people in photographs were "more real" to Lee than people in real life. The other simultaneous meaning is Lee is once again able to simply record what's going on by photographing desperate people, rather than getting involved trying to help those people.
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