The British director Michael Winterbottom is incapable of making the same type of movie twice. Before and after “In This World,” he directed “24 Hour Party People” and “Code 46,” respectively. The former is an amusingly shaggy biopic of Tony Wilson, Joy Division, and other Manchester scenesters. The latter is an austere, futuristic Tim Robbins vehicle.
“In This World,” however, follows two Afghani nationals’ attempts to travel from a Pakistani refugee camp to London. The journey moves through Pakistan, Turkey, Italy, and France. Rigorously shot on location, the film is deeply embedded in the underground of each country. The camera lingers in the cracks of the shantytowns and city streets, catching unguarded moments of praying, eating, and working.
The verisimilitude extends to the actors. Jamal is playing himself, more or less. The sobering end-titles impart that, after not granting asylum, England will deport the actor one day before his eighteenth birthday. Enayatullah, his traveling companion, is equally untrained. No matter; they’re living rather than acting.
As a road movie, “In This World” is most fascinated by the refugees’ modes of transportation. Whether by foot, pickup truck, or bus, each step could be their last. Often the confusion and fear of Jamal and Enayatullah are palpable. They will give a seemingly arbitrary amount of money to a foreign stranger without knowing what exactly they’ll get in return. Maddeningly, this confusion extends to the style of the film; a tenuous logic connects many scenes. In the most hellish sequence of the film, they (and others) are locked in a trailer on a cargo ship to Trieste. The squalid trip lasts so long that only two people survive. Nobody is waiting for them at the end of the journey.
The only conventional touches are the humanitarian voiceover introduction and the insistent soundtrack. Plaintive strings are offset by Arabic (Afghani?) chanting. Otherwise, “In This World” is a new kind of film, reenacting as closely as possible the shared dangers of untold people. It’s a documentary of events that could never be documented.
“In This World,” however, follows two Afghani nationals’ attempts to travel from a Pakistani refugee camp to London. The journey moves through Pakistan, Turkey, Italy, and France. Rigorously shot on location, the film is deeply embedded in the underground of each country. The camera lingers in the cracks of the shantytowns and city streets, catching unguarded moments of praying, eating, and working.
The verisimilitude extends to the actors. Jamal is playing himself, more or less. The sobering end-titles impart that, after not granting asylum, England will deport the actor one day before his eighteenth birthday. Enayatullah, his traveling companion, is equally untrained. No matter; they’re living rather than acting.
As a road movie, “In This World” is most fascinated by the refugees’ modes of transportation. Whether by foot, pickup truck, or bus, each step could be their last. Often the confusion and fear of Jamal and Enayatullah are palpable. They will give a seemingly arbitrary amount of money to a foreign stranger without knowing what exactly they’ll get in return. Maddeningly, this confusion extends to the style of the film; a tenuous logic connects many scenes. In the most hellish sequence of the film, they (and others) are locked in a trailer on a cargo ship to Trieste. The squalid trip lasts so long that only two people survive. Nobody is waiting for them at the end of the journey.
The only conventional touches are the humanitarian voiceover introduction and the insistent soundtrack. Plaintive strings are offset by Arabic (Afghani?) chanting. Otherwise, “In This World” is a new kind of film, reenacting as closely as possible the shared dangers of untold people. It’s a documentary of events that could never be documented.
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