In This World

Eclectic English film-maker Michael Winterbottom has produced his finest work to date with 'In this World', a pseudo-documentary account of the attempted journey of two Afghani refugees to London. This film's outstanding achievement is the sense it conveys that despite the ubiquity of television, mobile phones and the English language, this is still a big, poor and very beautiful world. I can't praise the cinematography highly enough - almost every scene is stunningly composed, especially the nighttime crossing of the mountains (shot without the use of additional lighting), yet none feels contrived. Characterisation is minimal, but the viewer feels emotionally bound to the journey. As a rich westerner, I am used to hopping on a plane and flying wherever I wish, but Winterbottom nonetheless succeeds in making me appreciate the culture shock encountered for his protagonists in travelling merely from one side of Pakistan to another. Their journey, of course, is no sort of holiday.

Winterbottom steers clear of direct politics, but we see (along with great suffering) numerous examples of the small ways in which human beings can be nice to one another - the contrast with the xenophobic hatred of the Daily Mail is unspoken but clear. Who knows if the real-life Jamals of this world find happiness? But the message for us is that we forget our shared humanity at our peril.

I don't want to try to explain the events in this film, or create an indepth synopsis. I'm not very good at that, and there are better places to find them (in fact, I think it's better to view it without knowing the plot).

What I do want to explain is how the concept is executed, and the effects it creates on the audience.

Though I said this is a serious film, I don't mean it's a film that can only be understood by the super-intelligent. This film is effective for everyone who cares to read into the situation.

At first, I thought this was a true documentary. The DV handheld camera and documentary feel is there all the way through the film, but at the start there was a quick voice over explaining a few things about the location. Also, bystanders were interacting with the camera.

However, as things progressed it's obvious to anyone that it's not a documentary, but in fact a very crafty piece of filmmaking. The beginning intends to fool you into the idea that this is a true, real life documentary, so as things hot up, you are more engaged. I was pondering this issue through the first fifth of the film, however, this wasn't a bad thing at all.

The settings in the film were breathtaking, so real and brutal. It was, in essence, a road movie. Our protagonists travelled around and stopped off at places, but as it was in documentary style, we seemed that little more part of the quest than you would in other road movies.

This may sound hypocritical, but because of the documentary style, we stay distant from our characters. We don't align with their emotions; instead we are voyeurs to the situation. Rather than feeling things from their point of view, we feel the situations as if we were there WITH them.

The visuals and editing in this film are also very important. In one scene, I was feeling very disoriented, and, almost sick, just like our on-screen characters. This was due to the lighting and editing, not shock or sickening imagery.

I saw this film in the cinema, but I expect many people will only be able to see this on TV or DVD because this isn't running the mainstream cinema circuit. However, unlike most movies, I think this will work well on all mediums because it's not a traditional film as it tries to pass itself off as a documentary. Maybe the scenes that really effected me physically won't work so well viewing them at home because it's unlikely you have the same A/V equipment, however everything else will be fine.

I agree with the previous review that this film is bleak, but despite this, it is very intriguing and you won't be able to look away once you get into it! You shouldn't leave the film feeling bored.

A FILM does not get much more real than this! I give it 8/10.

It is a magnificently crafted film from a cinematic standpoint, following no formulaic conventions about how to tell a story. It mixes dramatic and documentary techniques to create a moody, unflinching look at the plight of refugees of war. By introducing techniques of voice-over fact presentations and title overlays, it sets up an expectation that we are about to watch a documentary, and that what we are about to see is being filmed as it happens. Yet clearly, it must be a fiction, because it's too sharp, clean, and choreographed to be anything but staged. It maintains a curiously detached and distanced voice, and even the characters themselves seem rather remote from their own lives. They have a sad, worn-down air, and seem to trudge ahead with neither hope nor fear even in the most horrific circumstances. Their detachment from their own lives distances the viewer from them as well, unfortunately.

Those of us who live in so-called "western" and "civilized" cities always enjoy imagining the nostalgia of getting away from it all, owning a small hut in the mountains, living off of nature's gifts: veggies from the back yard, and meat from the farmhouse. Well, then there are those who live in those places that seem oh so nostalgic to us, and can't wait to get away from it all. They face the realities of rural life that so many of us day-dreamers tend not to include in our imaginings. And it also becomes hard for us to comprehend what is it about our stress-filled lives that these people want, that they would put their lives in danger and risk everything for entering another country and be part of that life. Then we realize the ignorant and arrogant lives we've been living: The luxury of taking survival for granted.

Films like "In this world" show us the journey taken in search for the promised lands. And we realize that the struggle for survival is common in every part of the world; it simply takes a different shape or form. The refugee's life becomes a story of adaption, rather than reaching a resolution. The idea of getting away from it all turns into realizing the lack of the void: that the frame of mind is what dictates what we want to get away from. Because it is so easy to find something to want to get away from, anywhere we live. Winterbottom's film captures these issues in almost documented reality of two brothers in search for the promised lands. It's almost as obvious of a reality right infront of us, as real and un-noticed as the image of the main titles super-imposed on a paint-peeling wall.

We see that we all are a refugee, running away from something, only to realize that we end up chasing a dream we will be running away from again later.

In February 2002 in the Shamshatoo Refugee Camp in the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan, there are 53,000 refugees living in sub- human conditions since 1979 with the Soviet Union invasion and 2001 with the USA bombing and invasion of Afghanistan. The family of the Afghan Enayat and his cousin Jamal decides to send them illegally to London to have a better life. They hire coyotes to smuggle the cousins through Iran and Turkey to Italy and finally London hidden inside trucks and containers. However, the long journey locked in a container with other families separates the cousins and on 09 August 2002, Jamal has his asylum application refused in London.

"In This World" is a bleak docu-drama from the great British director Michael Winterbottom. The realistic story of the long and dangerous journey of the cousins Jamal and Enayat from Pakistan to London and to the Other World is simply amazing, with two amateurish actors in the lead roles living the reality of their people. Michael Winterbottom also exposes the sub-human conditions of the refugees after the destruction of their country by the Soviets first and North-Americans later. The claustrophobic scene of the refugees locked inside the small container is so anguishing that made me nervous in my couch at home, Rambo III" is "dedicated to the brave people of Afghanistan", in accordance with the final quote of Sylvester Stallone; but the homage of Michael Winterbottom is much more scathing and sharp. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Neste Mundo" ("In This World")