In This World

2002 "The journey to freedom has no borders."
7.3| 1h28m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 17 November 2002 Released
Producted By: BBC
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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Torn straight from the headlines, Michael Winterbottom's compelling and prescient 'In This World' follows young Afghan Jamal and his older cousin Enayat as they embark on a hazardous overland trip from their refugee camp at Peshawar, north-west Pakistan. Entering Turkey on foot through a snowy, Kurdish-controlled pass, the pair again take their lives into their hands and face suffocation when they are locked in a freight container on a ship bound for Italy. From there they plan to travel on to Paris, the Sangatte refuge centre and ultimately asylum in London.

Genre

Drama

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Director

Michael Winterbottom

Production Companies

BBC

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In This World Audience Reviews

Scanialara You won't be disappointed!
Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Claudio Carvalho 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")
Robert_Woodward In This World charts the journey of two Afghan refugee brothers who leave their camp in Peshawar, Pakistan to seek a new life in London. The epic voyage of Jemal and Emayat is an archetypal refugee journey from East to West; in a film lasting just 90 minutes, director Michael Winterbottom weaves together a taut and powerful narrative, encapsulating the encounters and journeys-within-journeys that characterise refugee lives. Relatives of the two brothers give all they can to send them on their way; 'agents' of migration variously help and hinder their journey; policemen fleece them at the border crossings. From Peshawar to Sangatte (where would-be migrants to Britain crowd the French coast), the coherent and transfixing narrative brings together the names and places associated with countless refugee journeys.On Jemal and Enayat's journey there are so many glimpses of the world around – some enlightening, others mysterious – that you could watch this film again and again and be fascinated by new details each time. The early stages of the journey reveal the stunning emptiness of Central Asian landscapes, with vast plains stretching out towards impossibly far-off mountains. The journey across Asia reveals some very different – and occasionally alarming – road usage, whilst the briefest of pauses in rural Iran captures a little of the traditions involved in welcoming and sending-off guests. Among the most striking asides in this film for me is the footage of a cow being slaughtered by the halal method; just a few eye-opening moments are afforded to this episode.The film is, for all these fascinating glimpses, tightly woven around the story of Jemal and Enayat. The portrayal of their difficulties and sufferings is devastatingly powerful; the jerky, panic-stricken footage at the Turkish border and the dark and claustrophobic nightmare of the shipping container remain long and vivid in the memory. Although Winterbottom rarely lets the pace of the film slacken – indeed, he hardly has the option in such a wide-ranging and ambitious undertaking – snatches of conversation, bickering and camaraderie develop the two brothers' characters: they feel like real people. Jemal's humorous stories are particularly important in this regard, and, for me, the parodying of creation myths in these tales also suggests a much-warranted poking of fun at Western audiences, who often take a condescending interest in 'quaint' traditions.Through the use of a voice-over in the early stages of the film and recurring resort to a map to help chart the brothers' journey, Winterbottom adds overtly documentary-style elements to his film. These elements seem to me to jar with the rest of the film; there is no real need to add them to an otherwise immersive and realistic picture. On the other hand, whilst the musical score by Dario Marianelli seems jarring to begin with, it soon becomes an essential part of the film: a theme to match an exhaustingly emotional experience as we watch the migrants on their journey.
hupfons5 This is a fascinating docudrama. The human smuggling drama unfolds steadily with a few good plot twists, as the 2 main characters trek across two continents (mostly by land) toward their destination (London).Streamlined film-making on location, combined with the use of very talented untrained actors, makes the "movie" seem more like a well-done, dramatic documentary. The surround sound also heightens the "realism" of the journey and is excellent.If you want to increase your enjoyment of the film, I strongly recommend that you take an extra hour or so to watch the behind-the-scenes featurette, director's commentary, and trailers. Although neither of the main characters is a professional "actor", by watching these special features the viewers discover that the young man who played the part of Jamal (real name of Jamal Udin Torabi) has been trying to gain status in the UK as a legal alien. That "revelation" further heightens the emotional impact and socio-political importance of this excellent film.Get it and enjoy watching it.
bob the moo In a camp in Peshawar, the father of Jamal and Enayatullah pays for his sons to leave the country and travel to London to start a new life. Unable to afford air travel, they pay people smugglers to arrange a land journey across Iran, Turkey etc. However neither Jamal nor Enayatullah are prepared for the extra costs and the hardships they must endure on their way.When I heard about this film, I thought it was a proper documentary and I was a little disappointed to find out that, although the `cast' are real people, that this is actually a staged drama to reflect a true story. The actual plot here is a very worthy and interesting subject that we in the UK see all too often simplified as `they're after our jobs', or to quote Minnie Bannister `we'll all be murdered in our beds'. With the level of hysteria around refugees at the minute, this film is going to be worth seeing despite it's flaws, it is important that the voiceless have a voice.On this issue I am not liberal - I believe that the UK should open their doors for people who's countries pose a danger to themselves either political or humanitarian. However I believe they should return there once the danger has been removed (if it ever is). Anyway, despite this the film still touched me because it is a human story at the end of the day - regardless of my political beliefs Jamal and Enayatullah are people and it is moving to see the sort of thing they (and thousands like them) go through.Of course this whole documentary/drama thing was a problem for it and it spoilt the delivery somewhat. If this was a proper documentary I would be amazed. However as a `proper' (ie staged) film it is less impressive. Since this film had a writer, why was a better script not written - what we have hear is very baggy, not really natural and surprisingly unengaging. I assumed that it was trying to make itself into as much of a documentary as possible, this is the only reason I can think of for the structure being so, well, lacking in structure. Though mind you, Grisoni also has the pointless `hide' on his cv, so he's a mixed one.The direction is as good as one would expect from a filmmaker who had access to a lot more in the way of resources than many other trying to make this film for real would have. He does get good shots but he isn't really able to make the characters into real people - he seems content just to have them represent the Afghan people as a whole. Despite that Jamal and Enayatullah both come out of it well, good humoured and likeable - not the image we are given by the tabloids of benefit cheats who are coming to claim with one hand and rob with the other.Overall this is a worthy story that is told reasonably well. However the blurring between drama and documentary is a problem as it weakens the impact of the story. The fact that the script appears to be deliberately written to seem like a documentary means it lacks urgency, tension and real involvement. However the fact that it is a drama posing as a documentary means that the vast majority of the scenes feel staged and fake (which of course they are in the context of this film). It is worth seeing simply because this is the side of the story that we don't get shown often enough by our media.