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In This World
review by Elias
Savada, 10 October 2003
Michael
Winterbottom's In This World
is the second of four features (Emilio Martinez-Lazaro's The
Other Side of the Bed, Mark Decena's Dopamine,
and Mark Rucker's Die Mommie
Die rounding out the specialty quartet) launched in late summer
as the Sundance Film Series, a marketing gem promoting festival
entries from that renown event that have heretofore not received
commercial distribution. The features are, at least initially,
unreeling in ten markets (including here in Washington, DC) where
they are playing exclusively in theaters owned by the one of the
series' co-sponsors, Loews Cineplex. In the DC-Maryland-Virginia
metropolitan area, the films are playing in the central city venue
and tourist attraction, Loews Georgetown, although In
This World has since shifted to the outlying Cineplex Odean
Outer Circle, one of the older duplexes catering to the art house
market. Suburban patrons are thus allowed more leisurely access
(i.e., less downtown traffic, easier parking). Frankly, as nice as
the Georgetown multiplex is, bordering the Potomac River, it's
nearly impossible to visit (unless you travel by foot) without
plugging a meter (assuming you have enough quarters and the film
you're watching is under two hours) or being hijacked for bigger
bucks by local parking lot owners. (My suggestion: Sunday curbside
parking is free.)
That the film has
expanded beyond its confined Georgetown market is a fitting tribute
to a work that takes a political subject (immigrant and refugee
asylum) and paints a faux yet believable documentary veneer over the
story of two young Afghanis attempting to smuggle themselves into
England. The decidedly non-traditional screenplay by Tony Grisoni (Queen of Hearts, Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas, and the abandoned Terry Gilliam project The
Man Who Killed Don Quixote) is more a opinionated roadmap for
director Winterbottom, although certainly one that falls within the
realm of his oeuvre.
Director of Photography Marcel Zyskind's bare bones digital video
framework adds immensely to the day-in-the-life setting and the
story's intimate urgency.
Winterbottom, a
director who has attracted a critical following for his independent
projects over the last decade, whether it's last year's 24
Hour Party People, a funny, madness-tinted binge into the
yesteryear of the Manchester music scene, the little seen (and not
very remarkable); The Claim
(2000), an 1860s' Thomas Hardy romance set in one of those frigid,
snow-covered, gold-seeking northern California mountain towns; the
poignant ensemble piece Wonderland;
or 1997's Welcome to Sarajevo,
which deals with the Bosnian war and the orphans who are its
victims. In This World seems a continuation of this latter film, with its
combination of fact and fiction, yet with his new film he succeeds
because he has jettisoned any semblance of a professional cast and
replaced them with two individuals with no acting experience, and
who seem to have no inhibitions in front of the camera.
Jamal Udin
Torabi, playing the character Jamal, is a 16-year-old orphan toiling
away in a Pakistan brick factory for the equivalent of a dollar a
day. His older cousin Enayat (Enayatullah) is soon to be sent to
London. What Enayat lacks (particularly the ability to speak
English) makes Jamal the easy selection by Enayat's father to
accompany and bakroll his relative as comrade, translator, and
co-refugee on what will be an arduous journey across Asia and Europe
-- a trail followed by about 1 million people each year, many
entrusting themselves into the uncertain hands of
"professional" smuggling agents.
Jamal, a
determined youngster with much more resolute sense than his older
counterpart, is the person whose strong desire pushes the pair
further along the dusty byways from his Peshawar refugee camp -- by
bus (twice), by truck, hidden behind crates of produce, over frozen
mountain tops, and latter in a pitch dark, sealed shipping container
even a holocaust survivor might find more accommodating -- than he
probably deserves to travel, considering the legal quagmire, border
restrictions, lack of proper papers, and Enayat's gentler, and more
susceptible, nature. Obviously the roads to freedom are not paved
with gold, unless its stuffed away in your shoe for a rainy day.
For such an
undramatic piece, you're drawn to Winterbottom's world by its
bleakness and hope. For those of us who take liberty for granted, In
This World reminds us that there are many, many unfortunate
millions who regularly consider braving horrible conditions for the
mere chance to experience the same freedoms we have enjoyed for our
probably too comfortable lives. In
This World takes you on a suffocating, bewildering journey that
leaves you gasping for the comfort of your easy chair, but may, just
may, spark you to cross a heretofore unacknowledged cultural
boundary and take this horrifying message to heart.
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