Film Review 1

Film review:

Stories on Human Rights

This film, produced by the United Nations, and inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, seeks to communicate through various themes the effects of human rights in the everyday life of people across the globe. The film is a series of short films, twenty-two in total, which address the environment, gender, dignity and justice, development, culture, and participation, and received input from film makers around the world. I found that the films had varying levels of success in conveying their themes, and some were not very accessible due to sparse subtitles, but occasionally, a film would nail a subject, and I, as the viewer, would instantly connect with the theme and understand exactly what the filmmaker wished to express. For example, one of the films about Dignity, titled “Impasse”, was, initially, confusing for me. For most of the film, two characters, a white man(with a shaved head) and a black woman sat on a night train, occasionally sharing glances, some of which could be called flirtatious. The woman’s bag leaks perfume onto the man’s head. At one or two points, it seems the man will say something to the woman, as he smiles and looks on the brink of speech. Nothing is ever said, however, and the train pulls into the station, where the man remains seated silently, and the woman looks back at him from the door, before getting off. The man is shown, after her exit, smelling the perfume that has dropped on his hands. He then whips around to look out the window for one last glance of the woman. It is at this point the viewer sees his giant swastika tattoo, which covers the back of his neck. In contrast to the mild flirtation of an ethnic black woman and a racist white skinhead, the image of the swastika is a total surprise, and conveyed, to me, the message of tolerance, racial barriers, and dignity between a man and a woman.

Some of the films, however, did not make as much sense to me, in the vein of their theme. For example, one of the films on development was about a failed adoption in what seemed to be Russia, or another former soviet block country. A couple is seen driving to an orphanage, and are very excited to see what should be their new baby. However, they lack one of the necessary forms and are therefore unable to adopt at that time. The nurse takes the baby back to his cradle, and in order to silence his crying, covers his mouth with a large band-aid. I was unable to really access the message of “development” in this film, unless it had something to do with the hoops one has to jump through to get an “unwanted” child in this day and age, or if it was more related the the method of quieting the baby with a band-aid. Other films on development in the series were good however, such as one about growing a mango from pit to tree. In this film, a young girl finds a pit of a mango while walking, and she brings it home and plants it. The film follows the girl and the young tree until both are grown, the girl into a woman, and the sapling into a tree. The woman gives birth to a child, and in the last scene, this child is shown as being the same age as the woman when she first planted the tree, and the child is now enjoying the fruits of her mothers planning. This conveyed how development and planning effects everyday people, and has an effect on multiple generations.

What I liked about this film was that it showed the nuances of human rights in the everyday lives of people. When we think about human rights, or talk about human rights, I feel like most people talk about hot issues, such as female genital mutilation or genocide, but this film showed the side of human rights that more affects people everyday, and that was an interesting change. Yes, there was a short film on the effect of war on young children, but the films that seemed to say the most were about simple feelings of freedom, such as the unscripted film of two young southeast-asian men in the bed of a truck. They are showing the camera man their clothes, and their tattoos. They both are seen shouting and laughing wildly into the rushing air in the back of a pick-up truck, expressing their freedom of culture, and the effect it has on them. It was the short films like this one, and the one about the man and the woman in the train, which seemed to fully harness their ideas, and really express to the audience what exactly human rights means across the world, for everyday people, today.