Piers Mostyn reviews In This World (15) 2003) (directed by Michael Winterbottom)
AMAL, a 16 year old Afghani, lives Ja million strong note ca say
the Pakistan border. It is the Spring of 2002. He and his cousin Enayatulla want a better life. So they set off on an overland journey from Peshawar to London.
The coumey is filmed on location on a hand neid digital woes camera during a real joumey from Pakistan, through Iran, Turkey, Italy and France to England. It starts with a commentary setting the scene. The audience is informed that 2.3 million people a year travel from the developing world to the West.
But there is no attempt at judgement or special pleading. No suggestion that they are escaping persecution, famine or other trauma. It simply sees the world through the eyes of these vulnerable youngsters.
This makes it sound like another docu-drama shot with a wobbly camera. Well it isn't. This outstanding film will have you on the edge of your seat within ten minutes. It is pure fiction, but it is so real that disbelief is rapidly suspended.
There is a constant sense of insecurity and danger as the pair deal with people traffickers, border police, rip-off landlords and other sharks. They are terrified, exploited and exhausted in
Despite this, there is an overwhelming humanity in the story. Not just because of the natural empathy with the boys. Jamal reaches out with liveliness and humour to those he meets along the way - for instance Kurds in North West Iran or refugees at the Sangatte camp at Calais.
It is the roller-coaster lurching from these tender moments to harrowing scenes of extreme danger - particularly the trip in a container lorry by sea from Turkey to Italy - that makes it such gripping and involving cinema.
to draw migrants. tinction between a political refugee and an economic migrant, explained
Michael Winterbottom ne of the film makers' aims was attention the hypocrisy underlying the distinyou can't, it doesn't. tion between "worthy" and "unworthy"
*We wanted to try to unravel the dis
generations" producer Andrew Eaton, *the idea that
death. if you can establish that someone was potentially under threat in their country it justifies their being in your country, if
"You could go to any community in this country and trace them back to economic migrants through offeren
This perspective is rares ared partoulan, be a director wo a trac record of mainstream films (including 24 Hour Party People and Welcome to Sarajevo). It challenges the ToryLabour-Lib Dem consensus on the need for immigration controls.
The film's title says it all. Few films ture of the real world as it is lived in by so much of humanity. It is two Afghani youths' take on globalisation -their perilous journey from East to West, from inequality through disorder and In real life the 16 year old who plays Jamal (himself called Jamal) having made the journey to complete the film. returned to Pakistan. He has since made the journey in real life and is now a refugee in -onoon. An examole of life imitating a maing de ma: aoos extra so grand
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