Post by Drama Mama on May 2, 2008 22:47:38 GMT 3
Many of us think of life as a journey. But what if you never reached home on that journey? What if you didn't really have a home and the journey was taking you to a place you didn't know if you would even be welcomed to?
That is the story of Michael Winterbottom's In This World, a film about two Afghani refugees who undertake the daunting journey to what is supposed to be a better life in London. Jamal was born into a refugee camp on the Afghan border of the NWFP but when we are introduced to the adolescent he is orphaned and working as a brickmaker. His uncle agrees to send him along with his cousin Enayatullah to London since Jamal speaks English and can help his cousin face the challenges that lay ahead.
The journey that ensues is the dark world of human trafficking. It involves very little human kindness: a Kurdish family that welcomes them into their home before they travel over the snowy mountain peaks into Turkey; and a few moments of sharing hopes with a young Irani family that is escaping to a better life in Denmark. Rather, as so often is the case, it is a heart wrenching journey that involves financial exploitation, getting caught by the police, horrendous traveling and living conditions, forced labor, and even death for the most unfortunate human cargo.
Jamal's journey takes him from a life with little hope in the NWFP to a lonely hard life in Europe, selling trinkets on the street, stealing a purse, and stowing away under a tractor trailer in France headed for the UK. Once he arrives in London, the film shifts back to where the journey began when Jamal calls his uncle to tell him he is in London but that Enayatullah is no longer in this world. Jamal is still in this world (as are so many illegal refugees) -- but what kind of world is it for him and all the displaced persons like him?
That is the story of Michael Winterbottom's In This World, a film about two Afghani refugees who undertake the daunting journey to what is supposed to be a better life in London. Jamal was born into a refugee camp on the Afghan border of the NWFP but when we are introduced to the adolescent he is orphaned and working as a brickmaker. His uncle agrees to send him along with his cousin Enayatullah to London since Jamal speaks English and can help his cousin face the challenges that lay ahead.
The journey that ensues is the dark world of human trafficking. It involves very little human kindness: a Kurdish family that welcomes them into their home before they travel over the snowy mountain peaks into Turkey; and a few moments of sharing hopes with a young Irani family that is escaping to a better life in Denmark. Rather, as so often is the case, it is a heart wrenching journey that involves financial exploitation, getting caught by the police, horrendous traveling and living conditions, forced labor, and even death for the most unfortunate human cargo.
Jamal's journey takes him from a life with little hope in the NWFP to a lonely hard life in Europe, selling trinkets on the street, stealing a purse, and stowing away under a tractor trailer in France headed for the UK. Once he arrives in London, the film shifts back to where the journey began when Jamal calls his uncle to tell him he is in London but that Enayatullah is no longer in this world. Jamal is still in this world (as are so many illegal refugees) -- but what kind of world is it for him and all the displaced persons like him?
