With magnificent images of refugee flows around the world, the artist Ai Weiwei shows the huge scale of the crisis without specifying any solutions.
We are currently experiencing the largest refugee crisis since World War II, as more than 65 million people have been forced to flee because of war and persecution.
Crowded rubberboats are seen in bird's eye view of a merciless Mediterranean sea at the start of the Chinese director and artist Ai Weiwei's documentary film Human Flow.
Over a year he has filmed the focal points for the refugee stream and created a tale of the many fleeting people.
We see spontaneously encountered tent camps, hopelessly lying in pouring rain outside Europe's closed limits. And on the North African coasts, freezing refugees are being wrapped in carpets like small gold clumps.
Weiwei understands to promote the misery that the many refugees meet. Especially the pictures from Iraq, where the oil fields burn in the dark, childish floats in the street, and farm animals go stray around, resembling a travel brochure from hell.
But we also get close-ups of smiles from the refugees. The residents smile in the huge halls of Berlin, where a lot of refugees have been stuck together in newly bought bunk beds, as do the football-playing boys in Turkey's giant refugee camps.
It is the perfect formula for empathy, and Weiwei can visualize his fingertips. Several times, droneskud refugee camps seem to resemble wild marshes at a distance.
It sharps an understanding of how porous human life is, and it emphasizes the proportions of refugee flows. Experts and refugees are interviewed and explain how hopeless the situation is in the 23 different countries visited by Weiwei.
Several times we see him filming the events and interviewing refugees. It gives the documentary a terrestrial expression and exposes the distance to us who live so far away. For the recipient is obviously us in the western world.
Occasionally appearing adventurous elements such as the tiger who have faded into a refugee camp do not know what to do by themselves or the Mad Max-like American Border Guard, guarding its border with Mexico.
It creates an entertaining contrast to the otherwise hyperrealistic images of freezing and starving people.
"As a human, I think that any crisis or adversity that surpasses another human should feel as if it exceeds one self," said Ai Weiwei.
He thinks he is the solution to the problem, and he has to say that he really transmits the pain of bravur. But he does not offer any solutions to the problems the documentary depicts.
It looks nice in the halls of Berlin, but the pictures also show how unimaginable it is to get the many people out of the halls and braided into German society.
It is as if Weiwei has an idea that the world does not know how terrible it is to be refugee. But in the western world, few are probably the ones who are not aware of the extent of the problem.
It takes care of all our media to remind us of every single day, and most often make it so good that it can interfere with your night's sleep. On the other hand, most are probably unsure how best to handle the global challenge.
Ai Weiwei seems to think that humanity alone is the key to saving everyone. That's why the movie with its two hours and twenty minutes is like a dragon, but also a long-lived and unforgettable experience.
However, our feelings have Weiwei in his hollow hand, and he understands to paint a sensual image of a world that burns. And whose love of love alone proves to be the solution to all the horrors, Human Flow is truly an adventure.
Trailer: Human Flow
I dont know what kind of movie it was, but from the picture and thing you wrote i believe it might be a good movie.
i'll try to download it ASAP
Sure do that, it's not waste of time :-)