Movies Reviews

Life in a Day – Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Jul 28, 2011, 16:18 GMT

A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010. ...more

We live in one big messy ball of life or so it seemed July 24, 2010 when thousands of participant around the world shot scenes from their day and became a part of recorded history. 

They answered a call on YouTube from the Ridley brothers – Scott Free Productions - to collect living data and submit it to be part of a project that intended to capture life on earth on one given day.  
Time capsule, travelogue, nature show, emotional rollercoaster, mundane, thrilling, wild, tame, east, west, north, south, it’s all part of the experience.

Early scenes show elephants bathing in a river in India by a full moon, cuts to a woman leaving her shack to go to work, a boy shaving for the first time under the supervision of his father, a dying man weighed down by the realization of what lies ahead, and goes on to capture moments in life that cover the gamut of experience in 189 countries. 

Big moments and little moments are of equal value, the woman breast feeding her newborn baby and commenting how pretty he is, the army wife in an emotional moment Skyping her husband fighting overseas, the soldiers hamming it up away from the battleground.

A charming young photographer in Kabul, Afghanistan endeavors to show us the other side of his country – not the “suicide attackers” but the daily experience of people like us who happen to live in a war zone.   He always carries “his babies” (cameras) which comes in handy when he captures his brothers love for his refrigerator – “it’s cool, it stands in the corner, keeps its mouth shut”.

We become voyeurs in our own world, nosing around crowded apartments of a widower and his baby son who say their morning hello to the woman who loved them and has passed on.  

We watch (maybe) as a cow is shot and decapitated and a woman injured during a fireworks show and peace and love fans are trampled at the infamous Love Parade.  It ain’t all peaches and cream and neither is life in any day.

Willing participants answered the question “what do you love?”  One woman loves a word from a dead language spoken in Terra Del Fuego  that loosely means two people wanting to begin something but both afraid to.  The kid in Afghanistan loves his fridge!    The answers are surprisingly unexpected. 

It’s strange to think that beautiful little children are huddling in a decrepit boat somewhere out there in the dark waiting for the sunrise when we’re doing our own thing 6000 km away.  Its’ amazing to think as we go about our business, a woman might e skydiving in the most beautiful sphere above the clouds.

The entire experience is a heads up to those of us who become bored or complacent about our lives.  Look what goes on in the world, endless opportunity, people to relate to, just for the looking.

Of course, films like this are among the reasons social media is changing the world, bringing it together.  YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and (maybe Google+) sensitize us to each other, and break down barriers in ways no one could have seen before. 

Life in a Day films and newsreels has happened before, but things just got a whole lot easier with social media.

Visit the movie database for more information.

35mm documentary, using handheld digital cameras
Written by Kevin Mcdonald and Jospeh Michael
Opens July 24
Runtime:  95 minutes
MPAA:
Country: US
Language:  English /subtitled