Film Review
In This World
Dir. Michael WinterbottomScr. Tony Grisoni
Jamal Udon Torabi
Enayatullah Jumaudin
After tackling Factory Records, Tony Wilson and the rise of 'Madchester' director Michael Winterbottom has turned his attention to events far remved from the pop cultural intersections of 24-hour Party People. In this World is a film with a truly global perpsective on the issue of illegal immigrants and refugees. Using one camera and shooting in a docu-drama style Winterbottom draws us into the world of two young men, Jamal and Enayat, Afghan teens, who set out from their refugee camp home in Peshawar Pakistan (where 1 million of the population of 2 million people are refugess) on a long overland jounrey to London and the lure of a better life.
This is a brilliant but sobering story. The two young men serve as catalysts and symbols for the millions of refugees seeking better lives and moving all around the world. The boys enter the dark and illegal world of people-smugglers and confront so many heart-rending situations that you begin to wonder how anyone survives such treatment.
That, of course, is the point. We in the West are often so blind to the real world of illegal immigrants and refugees. The film follows Jamal, Enayat and other refugees as they are driven in trucks, hidden in orange boxes, walk through snow, hide underneath long distance trucks, suspended on pieces of wood beneath the chassis and the road, all in an effort to escape the cycle of poverty and despair that characterizes their home environment. Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai calls this particular dimension of the new global society, an ethnoscape. He describes it as the 'shifting world of immigrants, refugees, exiles, and guest workers' who along with tourists make up an essential feature of our globalized world; the dream of another, better life that sets these millions of people in motion and in so doing, changes the very fabric of societies and cultures as they force all of us to rethink boundaries, opprotunities and what a borderless world looks like.
In This World is not a piece of cinematic fluff, it functions on a much deeper level. It viewer to reconsider what it means to be human and to share in the plight of those who are driven by war, poverty, oppression and a host of other circumstances to fight their way towards dignity, hope and a richer life.
This is a brilliant but sobering story. The two young men serve as catalysts and symbols for the millions of refugees seeking better lives and moving all around the world. The boys enter the dark and illegal world of people-smugglers and confront so many heart-rending situations that you begin to wonder how anyone survives such treatment.
That, of course, is the point. We in the West are often so blind to the real world of illegal immigrants and refugees. The film follows Jamal, Enayat and other refugees as they are driven in trucks, hidden in orange boxes, walk through snow, hide underneath long distance trucks, suspended on pieces of wood beneath the chassis and the road, all in an effort to escape the cycle of poverty and despair that characterizes their home environment. Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai calls this particular dimension of the new global society, an ethnoscape. He describes it as the 'shifting world of immigrants, refugees, exiles, and guest workers' who along with tourists make up an essential feature of our globalized world; the dream of another, better life that sets these millions of people in motion and in so doing, changes the very fabric of societies and cultures as they force all of us to rethink boundaries, opprotunities and what a borderless world looks like.
In This World is not a piece of cinematic fluff, it functions on a much deeper level. It viewer to reconsider what it means to be human and to share in the plight of those who are driven by war, poverty, oppression and a host of other circumstances to fight their way towards dignity, hope and a richer life.