| The plight of Third World refugees seeking asylum in developed nations is the underlying subject of director Michael Winterbottom’s topical docudrama In This World (U.K., 2002), but this is unfortunately one movie where politics interfere with storytelling.
An ambitious film, In This World follows two Afghans, Jamal (Jamal Udin Torabi) and Enayat (Enayatullah), on their perilous journey from a refugee camp in Pakistan through Iran, Turkey, Italy, France and, finally, to what they hope will be safe haven in London, England. As the two cousins are smuggled across various international borders, they are interrogated, extorted, hoodwinked, shot at and even forced to spend more than 40 hours inside a claustrophobic shipping container with several other refugees. To its credit, the film honestly depicts the harrowing reality faced by vast numbers of illegal migrants trying to escape a bleak future in one world for a better life in another.
Oddly, though, this realistic approach also makes it difficult for Winterbottom – who has previously directed such varied films as Jude (1996), Wonderland (1998) and 24 Hour Party People (2002) – to convey the drama inherent in writer Tony Grisoni’s scenario. Certainly, the elements are in place for a gripping survival story, or at least for a detailed observation of the amoral transactions that transpire in the unseemly business of smuggling humans. But Winterbottom, as he often does, prefers a more cumulative approach to narrative – meaning that, rather than impose a traditional three-act dramatic structure, he strings together various scenes of Jamal and Enayat’s hazardous voyage with the hope that the story will eventually emerge.
Certainly, this approach has worked for Winterbottom before, most effectively in Wonderland, an engaging study of the intersecting lives of three sisters in contemporary London. But it doesn’t seem as appropriate for In This World, where extraordinary circumstances end up being rendered all too matter-of-factly. Often, the film seems more like a jaunty travelogue than a furtive odyssey fraught with potentially fatal pitfalls.
The film’s cinematography indicates that a great deal of attention was paid to the colour and composition of each image, but it also reveals a strangely disinterested point of view. We don’t see much of the voyage from either Jamal or Enayat’s perspective, which suggests that they are less individual characters than they are representatives for all refugees. Winterbottom may be more concerned with the politics of immigration policy than he is with the more immediate struggles of his characters, but that doesn’t make the film any more compelling.
No matter how naturally the two leads are portrayed by the non-professional actors hired for the parts, In This World is constructed to prevent identification with either of them. It seems a strange manoeuvre, given that one of Winterbottom’s stated goals in making the film was to help his guilty white liberal British audience understand the plight of refugees. One can’t fault the filmmaker for his good intentions, but perhaps he would do more for the cause of those he’s trying to help by telling their stories with the drama they deserve. |
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