In This World

Rating:
Summary: Two Refugees' Perilous Journey from Pakistan to England
Review: "In This World" by prolific British director Michael Winterbottom ("24 Hour People", "Jude" and many others) follows the two refugees' journey from the camp in Pakistan to England. The film, shot in documentary style (but not really documentary), will show you how the two characters Jamal and Enayatullah have to endure many uncomfortable things during the long, long course.

15-year-old Jamal (played by Jamal Udin Torabi) is an orphan boy living in Pakistan, his parents being refugees from Afganistan. He was born in this camp for refugees, and is working at a brick factory, receiving very low wages. Now, it is decided that his cousin Enatatullah (played by Enayatullah) goes to London where one of his relatives is living, and Jamal also makes up his mind to go there, accompanying his cousin to the end.

But they have to travel very long, sometimes taking a very dangerous route, always hiding from the authorities that will bring them back to Pakistan if they are caught. Moreover, they often have to trust their money and lives to the smugglers who might not be as trustworthy as the money they pay suggests. And even if these smugglers turn honest, the journey is still very hazardous, maybe deadly.

The story is not complicated. The film's point is its realistic descriptions of the lives of the two refugees on the way to England, and director Winterbottom succeeds in catching the atomosphere of each country where the two characters pass. Compare the rocky mountains in Pakistan, and urban streets of Tehran, central city of Iran, and you see what I mean.

Unlike his "Welcome to Sarajevo," Winterbottom avoids making this film political in any way, possibly because of the European people's mixed feelings about the refugees in Europe. I do not know, but it is clear that the camera is not willing to show the motives of Jamal and Enayatullah, and it does not show the responce to them on the side of the people who receive them. The film somehow refuses to be emotional, and certainly does not preach. That does not mean that "In This World" does not show any daily, natural feelings of the two protagonists. On the contray, it does, but it does only in details, such as jokes they exchange, or ice creams they eat. And these details, not indictment, bring life to the film.

The film comprises a string of episodes, and you cannot expect something like character development or sentimental parting. Still the film looks very realistic without them. The method works, but has its own defects as well, making the whole story look somehow superficial. Perhaps we need more emotional touch to relate to these people, or perhaps their lives look repetitious to us.

But surely, if I were Jamal, I would feel the same way the film's Jamal would -- risk my life, and go to England. "In This World" has that kind of power, the power only a good visual sense can have. See this one, and share the world they live in.

Rating:
Summary: Two Refugees' Dangerous Journey from Pakistan to England
Review: "In This World" is about a journey of two refugees from Pakistan, entirely shot in a semi-documentary style (meanig digital camera). Their hard times during the trek are realisticly presented largely owing to these non-professionals, and the film sometimes blurs the borderline between the reality and fiction.

Jamal (Jamal Udin Torabi) is an orphan living in the camp for refugees in Pakistan. He works at a brick factory, but the wages he receives are incredibly low. In the meantime, it is decided that Enayatullah (Enayatullah), Jamal's cousin, should go to one of the relative's in London, and Jamal jumps at this rare opportunity to see the world outside. The only problem is, their journey is nothing like business trip; as refugees, they have to hide from the authorities that would send them back to Pakistan if they should ever be discovered.

That last part is not the only obstacle they meet on the way. Jamal and Enayatullah have to depend on the smugglers who might not be trustworthy as the huge amount of money they have to give suggests. And even if they turn honest, the two travellers have to go on the hazardous route that might possibly take their lives away.

Michael Winterbottom, prolific English director, is no stranger to this subject matter; you might remember his "Welcome to Sarajevo" which covers the similar territory of refugees in Europe. However, "In This World" is free of any political messages or preaching words. It succeeds as the film is always about the two believable protagonists. Actually, director Winterbottom says that he was inspired to make this film when he heard the tragic news about the deaths of Chinese refugees found in a container at Dover Port. Considering the impact of shocking news that really happened in 2000, the film is quiet and even serene, and emotionally subdued.

But that method has its own defects; "In This World" is certainly real, but at the same time some viewers might find it a bit superficial. At least, the film can be called episodic, and though each episode is credibly shown on the screen, the film never allows us to understand the feelings of the two refugees at deeper level. In other words, we don't know why they head for Europe in spite of the enoumous danger waiting for them. The film's calmed down manner is successful, but it deprives the story of any dramatic elements.

Excuse me for giving the last complaint. Otherwise I find the film's credible portrait of the two refugees very touching, in particular when they exchange ordinary, daily conversations like buying ice cream. And the film is good at capturing the air of the dusty streets, crowded towns, modern cities (see the fashionable ladies in Tehran), and rocky mountains in Pakistan. One of the best Winterbottom films, and one of the best from UK, too.

Rating:
Summary: Two Refugees' Dangerous Journey from Pakistan to England
Review: "In This World" is about a journey of two refugees from Pakistan, entirely shot in a semi-documentary style (meanig digital camera). Their hard times during the trek are realisticly presented largely owing to these non-professionals, and the film sometimes blurs the borderline between the reality and fiction.

Jamal (Jamal Udin Torabi) is an orphan living in the camp for refugees in Pakistan. He works at a brick factory, but the wages he receives are incredibly low. In the meantime, it is decided that Enayatullah (Enayatullah), Jamal's cousin, should go to one of the relative's in London, and Jamal jumps at this rare opportunity to see the world outside. The only problem is, their journey is nothing like business trip; as refugees, they have to hide from the authorities that would send them back to Pakistan if they should ever be discovered.

That last part is not the only obstacle they meet on the way. Jamal and Enayatullah have to depend on the smugglers who might not be trustworthy as the huge amount of money they have to give suggests. And even if they turn honest, the two travellers have to go on the hazardous route that might possibly take their lives away.

Michael Winterbottom, prolific English director, is no stranger to this subject matter; you might remember his "Welcome to Sarajevo" which covers the similar territory of refugees in Europe. However, "In This World" is free of any political messages or preaching words. It succeeds as the film is always about the two believable protagonists. Actually, director Winterbottom says that he was inspired to make this film when he heard the tragic news about the deaths of Chinese refugees found in a container at Dover Port. Considering the impact of shocking news that really happened in 2000, the film is quiet and even serene, and emotionally subdued.

But that method has its own defects; "In This World" is certainly real, but at the same time some viewers might find it a bit superficial. At least, the film can be called episodic, and though each episode is credibly shown on the screen, the film never allows us to understand the feelings of the two refugees at deeper level. In other words, we don't know why they head for Europe in spite of the enoumous danger waiting for them. The film's calmed down manner is successful, but it deprives the story of any dramatic elements.

Excuse me for giving the last complaint. Otherwise I find the film's credible portrait of the two refugees very touching, in particular when they exchange ordinary, daily conversations like buying ice cream. And the film is good at capturing the air of the dusty streets, crowded towns, modern cities (see the fashionable ladies in Tehran), and rocky mountains in Pakistan. One of the best Winterbottom films, and one of the best from UK, too.

Rating:
Summary: Eldorado Within Reach For The Lucky Few
Review: Aguirre, the egomaniac and mad conquistador embarked on a harsh and dangerous journey through the dark, hostile and uninviting jungles of Peru to look for his Eldorado, the city of gold.
In our time, and more realistically, determined and courageous people embark on a similarly harsh journey through land and sea to find their Eldorado,the land of opportunities.
In This World,the underrated masterpiece of British director Michael Winterbottom (Butterfly Kiss, Jude,The Claim 24 Hour Party People)is a film that goes with two young men on such a journey, from the Afghan refugee camps of Peshawar in Pakistan to London.
What is striking about this movie first of all is the fact that it is the first feature that follows the journey of illegal immigrants from start to finish. We have seen some very good examples of films that deal with the plight and conditions of refugees in various countries,like Majidi's Baran, Frears's Dirty Pretty Things, or Kechiche's La Faute A Voltaire, but never had a director approached this highly sensitive issue with such intimacy,and detail before:
He takes the viewer along this journey, step by difficult and dangerous step.
Moreover,the issue of illegal immigration has occupied many a headline in the media recently leading to a near hysteria of anxiety and fear about the coming 'flood' to Europe. While undoubtedly there is a problem, Winterbottom manages with his film to be the 'other voice', the one of compassion, sympathy and understanding,putting names,stories and faces to these people: an achievement he should be praised for.
The use of digital camera, some grainy shots and fast editing, all add a gritty realism, while the soft focus and beautiful scenery add a dreamy atmosphere that somehow reflect the dream that drives these people.
I was surprised how quickly I connected and sympathized with our two heroes, Jamal Udin Torab,and Enayatullah, themselves total amateurs and refugees (it reminded me of Iranian directors and how they have excelled in using complete amateurs with stunning results),and I anxiously followed them, and hoped for their safe arrival!! This is all due to the wonderful direction of Winterbottom.
There are some very powerful scenes,and the one inside the truck was truly haunting!!
We take so much for granted unfortunately, and most are lucky to associate the word 'journey' with a holiday, but there are others in this world, for whom this word means the difference between desolation and hope,and even life and death ,one they are willing to take no matter how high the cost is.
I am only grateful that Michael Winterbottom has taken that same journey with his camera, and with an eye that is totally involved and compassionate invited me in the safety of my own home to embark on it too..Do Not Miss It!

Rating:
Summary: Just Incredible. That's the only word to describe it.
Review: In this World deals with the struggles faced by people in third world countries who set out in search of a better future.

The two main characters leave their Afghani refugee camp in Pakistan to travel to London, where their uncle has arranged a better life for them. Along the way they pass through several countries, including Iran, Turkey and France, just to name a few.

The acting? Incredible. The cinematography? INCREDIBLE. The political message? Great. Although Winterbottom avoids political rhetoric for most of the movie, it is clear that the desperate situation the refugees are put in is a direct result of America's "war on terror"

This movie will move you in a million different ways, and will make you truly feel for those less fortunate than you IN THIS WORLD.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling Guerilla Film-Making
Review: Just saw Michael Winterbottom's compelling new movie In this World. In it, two young Afghani men Enayat and Jamal attempt to make it from Peshawar, Pakistan to London, England via a human smuggling operation. It's a rigously realistic portrayal, essentially a fictional documentary, cinema verite shot in digital video. Winterbottom packs a lot in as Enayat and Jamal pass through a dizzying array of cities and cultures on their way towards . . . tragedy. The little help they receive along the way, they receive warily, wisely unsure whether to trust any who offer it.

The films opens with some facts:

>The United States spent almost 8 billion bombing the Taliban in Afghanistan
>Many Afghanis moved to Peshawar to avoid the bombing--and, I'm sure, because many were made homeless
>There are 14 million refugees in the world
>1 million of them are in Peshawar

Providing this already stunning movie with even more impact: the character of Jamal is portrayed by a young Afghani named Jamal who really made the journey himself. Winterbottom and his crew took him back to Peshawar where they recreated the story, a story anyway of a similar journey, simply by asking people to relive their experiences.

In this World deserves notice, and Winterbottom deserves, not an Academy award--those come too cheaply--but some sort of humanitarian award for drawing attention to the subject. (It did win the Golden Bear, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Peace Film Prize at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival.) I wish everyone who arranged and executed the bombing of Afghanistan could see it. We may be able to justify the freeing of the Afghani people from the treacherous Taliban, but can we really justify the lack of attention we're giving the innocents affected by that campaign?

If you've never seen any of Winterbottom's films, I recommend you see, well, all of these as well: Welcome to Sarajevo, Wonderland, The Claim, and 24 Hour Party People. I've also heard that Jude is excellent--both Jude and The Claim are based on Thomas Hardy novels (Jude, the Obscure and The Mayor of Casterbridge respectively).

Also, for an excellent, yet ultimately sobering movie set in Afghanistan before the fall of the Taliban, see Osama, a tragedy which depicts a 12-year-old girl who poses as a boy in order to earn money from her widowed mother and grandmother. I saw both movies within the past week, and together they provide an extraordinary glimpse at the harrowing existence our fellow humans endure in Afghanistan.

Rating:
Summary: Fiction or Documentary? You Decide
Review: Michael Winterbottom's In This World is basically a sort of documentary-cum-drama where we follow a real Afghan boy as he travels from a refugee camp in Pakistan to hopefully a better life in London. While the boy's journey is real, much of the dialogues and many of the characters are largely scripted. That blending of fiction and reality makes for a strange viewing experience, because some scenes are staged, shot, and edited in the manner of a conventional narrative film, while other scenes invoke the more traditional documentary style. Aside from that, the journey itself is harrowing and dehumanizing, and makes you look at those who decide to make the dangerous trip very differently. Surprisingly, Winterbottom didn't really try to make any political statement with the film, except maybe at the end. He instead simply tells this one story as part of our collective human experience. The film lacks the realistic immediacy because it's not exactly a documentary, but it's still well worth checking out.

Rating:
Summary: An exhilarating journey
Review: Motivated by a news story about 58 Chinese immigrants found suffocated in a container at Dover, In This World by Michael Winterbottom is a passionate tribute to the nearly one million refugees a year who are willing to take enormous risks to seek a better life. Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival, the film follows two boys, Jamal, 16 (Jamal Udin Torabi) and his older cousin Enayat (Enayatullah) on a perilous overland journey from an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan to seek economic security in the West. Shot in documentary style with a digital camera strapped to the back of cinematographer Marcel Zyskind, the film is fictional but is drawn from a true story and mirrors the desperate conditions of untold thousands whose faces we never see.

The boys are Pashtun who have grown up at the Shamshatoo refugee camp in Pakistan along with 53,000 other Afghanis, victims of the Russian-Afghan War or the American war against the Taliban. The politics of the refugees are not discussed and the film is basically a human story that crosses political and religious lines. Since Jamal speaks some English, Enayat's family asks him to go with him to London where he can apply for asylum as a refugee. From Peshawar, Jamal and Enayat travel by bus to Quetta and over the Iranian border to Taftan and by bus to Tehran. They do not have proper identification and must contend along the way with border guards, police, thieves, smugglers, and numerous changes in currency and language.

The boys bribe a customs officer with a Walkman but when ordered off a bus to Tehran, they meet a group of Kurds who offer them the hand of friendship. There is not much dialogue and the boys mostly improvise the funny stories and small talk as they endure days and weeks of waiting for their next ride. In a sequence of great beauty shot at nighttime using infrared photography, the Kurds help the two boys cross the icy mountains to Turkey, ducking the gunfire of armed soldiers at the Turkish border. Together with an Iranian and his wife and baby, they are then brutally forced to travel inside a shipping container for a 40-hour voyage from Turkey to Italy, a journey where only the strong survive.

In This World is not just a road movie but a human document of urgency and commitment that allows us to experience the humanity of the people some contemptuously refer to as "economic migrants" or "asylum seekers". While it is not a political statement, it is clearly a slap at the recent hardening of European immigration policies. On a broader scale, however, the film can be seen as an apt metaphor for life. It tells us that the journey is exhilarating but fraught with unimagined obstacles at every turn, yet there are friends who are there for us along the way and, when we feel overwhelmed and hopeless, there is an aching beauty that fortifies us with the strength to keep going.


Rating:
Summary: a heartbreaking human tragedy
Review: One of the best international movies I have ever seen. So heartfelt, sensitive, funny, tragic and amusing, I could not take my eyes off the screen for a second, loaded with beautiful scenery...A masterpiece for any one interested in movies that can touch anyone's heart, a promise to amuse you. If you are familiar with Winterbottoms style of film making (Documentary style) you won't be confused whether this IS documentary or not. Check his earlier movies, Welcome to Sarajevo, then you'll understand his style. I recommended to any one I knew.

Rating:
Summary: A Tale of Desparate Travel
Review: The cinematography of this film is sparse and naked, the pacing as if you are following the tale of lives, the acting like there is no acting at all, and the subject matter relevant. If you need edited and spliced quick action pacing and effects, go elsewhere. If you care about the broadening of horizons and want to learn more about the experience of a middle-east refugee, watch this film.

Michael Winterbottom, the director of In This World, make some important choices. One, his casting of actual refugees instead of professional actors, lend great authenticity to the story. My favorite aspect of the movie is the location shooting in places rarely viewed by a Western audience. The tale starts in a border refugee camp between Afghanistan and Pakistan outside of Peshawar. A youth, brave and wise beyond his years, and an older relative take off on a journey to the promised land of London. On the way they go through Quetta, Qom, Teheran, Turkey, Belgium, and eventually on to London. The journey is grueling and harrowing and makes the refugee camp look like another form of paradise.

The pacing may be slow and there is a lot of silence in the movie but the sense of travel, trust and deserved mistrust stays with you. People put their lives in the hands of human traffickers all for the dream of something better...if they survive to reach something better.

If you care about international issues of refugees and their plight, you will be rewarded by this film. If you are interested in some of the dynamics between Afghanistan and Pakistan, you will be glad you took this one in. If you only tend towards mainstream flicks and have a need to be entertained, well look elsewhere.
--MMW