In This World

Dendy

Magna Pacific 2005 (Australia)

R4 DVD

Sundance

R1 DVD

This is a film that is very hard to form a reaction to. It is the story of a young Afghani youth who, with his cousin, tries to leave the poverty and hopelessness of his refugee camp in Pakistan and travel to the supposed Promised Land of London. The reenactment covers his trials at the hands of the people smugglers, the people both good and bad who help him along the way, and the rather disappointing end when he gets to London. The film is based on the experiences of real refugees, and looks authentic.

If you believe that these refugees are genuinely oppressed, badly treated, and should be treated as victims of the modern international situation, you do not need to see this film. If, like me, you are trying to find out WHY they do this, you are going to be disappointed.

The film tends towards the superficial in that it leaves so many areas unexplained. It offers no particular rationale for wanting to go to London (or, as is mentioned a couple of times, the U.S.) There appears to be no attempt to mention the dangers of the journey, let alone the fact that at the end of his journey Britain may not even want him. Would he be better off staying in his own country and trying to improve himself there? In this, I can’t help but contrast Jamal with Niaz in “Son of a Lion”, a film reviewed in Synergy earlier this year. Niaz wants to learn to read and write to better himself in his own country. Jamal just seems to want to get out.

Jamal seems to have a hard but basic life in the refugee camp, and works in the local brickworks. When he finally gets to London his employment in this “Paradise” is as a dishwasher, so has he really improved his lot? Then his application for refugee status fails and he is required to leave Britain before his eighteenth birthday anyway, so what was the point? I think the film would have been more convincing and less documentary-like had Winterbottom looked at these issues as well. The end of the film, where a simple text screen announces that he was required to leave the country, is very unconvincing when we know the film is a reenactment of a mythical composite case anyway. Why does he have to leave? What does he feel about it? What does the British government feel about his illegal entry? How about his family back in Pakistand who are now thousands of dollars out of pocket?

These points aside, the film is engrossing. The links involved in the human smuggling trade are impressive and callous. Jamal’s mistrust of the smugglers is fully justified, as he and his cousin are cheated, robbed, and look like finishing up as illegal slave workers in a Teheran factory. Since his cousin can’t speak many languages, Jamal must handle the communication and make most of the decisions. At sixteen, he shows a greater maturity than his older cousin. Even so, there are problems which are beyond his abilities to work around and at one stage they are caught by Iranian police and sent back across the border to Pakistan.

The acting is rarely brilliant and the handheld camera work can be a bit tiresome but the changing countries, people and customs are an interesting background to Jamal’s journey. Most of the trip for Jamal and his fellow refugees, is spent in a sort of fugue as they simply wait to get to the next stage of their journey. Friendships are brief, moments of happiness few. Jamal’s final entry to Britain, a country seriously hostile to illegals, is glossed over and not explained.

Overall, the film is worth a close look. As a reenactment documentary on the cruelties of people smuggling it is effective and powerful. Just don’t expect too much more from it.

This review will appear in Volume 2:1 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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