The film is about the international community marginalising those who they are responsible for, these are refugees who have been bombed out of house and home by western governments and then made to live out a dead-end existence in refugee camps, throughout the film they are struggling to get back what has been forcibly taken from them, a free existence.

The ways they go about doing this are the only chance they have, I'm not saying your sympathys should lie with the characters, but the blame should not, this is a topical film of the current political climate.

anyway otherwise, fantastic acting, cinematography by a true modern great.

In This World- the asylum seeker's journey
Review date: 2005-04-01 Rating: 10 out of 10

'In This World' delivers a convincing insight into the concealed world of human trafficing, and the desperate lengths some people will go to in order to seek a 'better' life in the Western World. Although this film is a finctionisation of true events, the combination of an amateur cast and third-person camerawork gives this film a documentary feel- it is all to easy to imagine these events taking place everyday around the world.
The film does not go out of it's way to evoke sympathy, tragegy is almost brutally ignored, rather than sentimentally dwelt upon, and there is no pretence of abject suffering in the lives of the unfortunate asylum seekers- merely the dream of a better life in London. Never-the-less one cannot help but be drawn to these compelling characters, and be dissatisfied with the film's conclusion- as with immigration as a whole, there are no answers to be found here.
This is the human face of immigration, and one too often hidden from the eyes of the world. Highly recommended.

Missed opportunity
Review date: 2004-03-30 Rating: 4 out of 10

Having read the other reviews, I was looking forward to seeing this film...and then I did! Oh dear.
Whilst very accomplished stylistically and with good performances all round, I thought the moral centre of the film was dubious.
The central characters chose to come to London but chose to break the law in doing so. They didn't seem to be in any immediate danger in the place where they lived and their decision to travel to London seemed more of a lifestyle choice. Fair enough...but they broke the law all the same. This involved stealing the handbag of a woman whose husband had just bought a few trinkets from one of the refugees. Nice.
Whislt tragic, my sympathy just wasn't with them. If a country will only let you in by a certain way, (whether you agree with that way or not) - then that's what you should do. A country should also be big-hearted enough to have "speedy applications" for those in obvious peril in their own homelands.None of that was addressed here and the two, initially likeable characters, ended up giving genuine refugees seekers more grist to the Daily Mail mill. Big shame.
Two stars for cinematography.

An anti-reality... both real and surreal in equal measures.
Review date: 2004-03-13 Rating: 10 out of 10

Over the last decade, Michael Winterbottom has emerged as the most intelligent and creative filmmaker working in Britain today. Unlike his contemporaries, he is unconcerned by the pressures of the U.S. and the importance of the Hollywood movie-system, and instead, has crafted a series of visually distinctive and emotionally heartfelt films dealing with a range of subjects; from sexual jealousy, infertility, modern-day alienation, the American frontier, and Manchester's vibrant post-punk music scene. His best films have fused dreamlike imagery (often drawing on Bergman and Kieslowski as his primary inspiration) with an almost-documentary sense of time, place and character. In This World takes that idea to new and unexplored levels, giving us a film that sets up an anti-reality, which allows the film to drift in and out of the real and the surreal at any given time to further establish the strained connection that the characters literally have with the world around them.

The sense of space seems lifted from the work of Iranian filmmakers like Samira Makhmalbaf (the Apple, Blackboards) with the idea of heightened reality coming from the employment of non-professional actors and the general cultural background of the characters. In the opening scenes, Winterbottom offers us an anachronistic narration to give the film a further sense of reality, whilst later scenes show townsfolk and children gazing with wonderment into the camera lens. This façade of the real, (though it is a fictional account based on fact) is so successful, that whenever a character died on screen the people who I viewed the film with questioned whether or not Winterbottom was creating some kind of art-house snuff. The actors are drawing on real experiences, and it is this element that gives the film its unrivalled emotional control and unbelievable sense of tragedy (lead 'actors' Enayatullah and, in particular, the young Jamal Udin Torabi, are both unconventionally outstanding).

Winterbottom keeps the episodic narrative running smoothly, using the fallen innocence of Jamal as the catalyst for the film. He anchors this with the use of imagery also; handheld digital video with jump cuts, slow motion, time-lapse, night-vision photography, colour filters... all are used to create a dislocated atmosphere, in an attempt to make the character's surroundings both alien and threatening. It works, Winterbottom, along with his cinematographer, create some of the most beautiful images of contemporary British cinema. Meanwhile, the technical transfer of the DVD brings out the best of the vibrant, rugged photography (though one minor let down in the lack of proper aspect ratio, the widescreen being the more generic TV 16x9, as opposed to the cinematic 2:35.1), whilst the 5.1 stereo-sound captures the wild-hustle and confusion of the locations perfectly.

Elsewhere on the DVD there are trailers, and a collection of behind the scenes footage with a voice-over from Winterbottom who discusses the difficulties his small crew faced in shooting the film and the impetuous behind it's evolution from a written script into a more documentary style-drama. Winterbottom's film is moving and compassionate without ever feeling the need to rely on cloying sentiment or exposition-by-numbers... he allows his film to unfold naturally, leaving it to the central performers to create a connection with the audience. It is so refreshing to see a contemporary British filmmaker shunning the influence of Hollywood and instead looking to filmmakers like Samira Makhmalbaf, Maryiam Parvin Almani and Abbas Kiarostami. Like the works of those individuals, this is important, intelligent, imaginative and above all else, serious filmmaking, which should be experienced by as many people as possible.

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