Life In A Day (2011)
Various
Various
Ridley and Tony Scott’s production house Scott Free, in association with LG and YouTube, invited users from around the world to submit footage of their lives shot on July 24, 2010 as a part of a socio-cinematic experiment. Out of the 4800 hours of video gathered, chief director Kevin Macdonald and co. wove this exhilarating 90-minute ride, Life in a Day, which, on its surface takes us through one day in the life of people from around the world. If Dziga Vertov attempted to sketch a portrait of a pulsating city as seen through the Kino-Eye over a day and Medvedkin had Soviet peasants shoot their own lives, edited the obtained footage in his Cine-Train and played it back to them, Life in a Day combines both these ideas and realizes them in a post-globalized cultural-economic climate – a time where the omnipresence of branded consumer products is matched by the ubiquity of low-cost image-making instruments. An endless play of presence and absence, lack and excess, similarity and difference, the homogenous and the un-normalizable and the empowered and the marginalized, Macdonald’s virtually inexhaustible film is a snapshot of planet earth in all its glory, stupidity and complexity. So much film theory has sprung up since Vertov et al made their films and what is of interest is not only the relationship between individual shots, but also the dense cultural content within each one of them that enriches our response manifold. Sporadically erratic and miscalculated, Life in a Day nevertheless achieves the remarkable feat of synthesizing a coherent, mesmerizing and, indeed, philosophically ambitious film from the very elements that have become the antithesis of these traits. What appears as a paean to narcissism to some commentators seems to me as a heightened awareness of one’s own existence. The act of photographing oneself – on a particular day and for a particular purpose – prompts one to be continuously conscious of the passing of time and the finitude of experience. One frustrated lady sums it up in the film’s final line: “Today, even though nothing great happened, tonight, I feel as if something great happened.”
October 17, 2011 at 12:14 am
This is one of my favorite movies of the year so far, and it’s also my favorite documentary of the year. It manages to be modern and even post-modern in the most obvious sense that you can think of (multiple inputs, worldwide coverage, the minimal things overblown to importance due to their position granted due to editing), and yet at the same time manages to resort to theories and editing styles from Vertov (as you note) to Eisenstein (even if minor, sometimes the relation between two distinct events in two far sides from the earth becomes powerful with a third meaning).
You also note one of my favorite parts of the whole thing: the ending. Her face and her speech talk to us about the importance of what it is to be human, of what it is to be in a place and time, it is an ode to life itself, to human life, to human relations, to the human face even.
Excellent writing as always JAFB.
October 17, 2011 at 11:54 pm
Superb points there, Jaime, especially about its status b/w the modern and the postmodern. I’m glad we see face to face about this movie. It has been pretty unfairly signed off by critics I love.
Thanks and Cheers!
October 17, 2011 at 8:07 am
“Life in a Day nevertheless achieves the remarkable feat of synthesizing a coherent, mesmerizing and, indeed, philosophically ambitious film from the very elements that have become the antithesis of these traits. What appears as a paean to narcissism to some commentators seems to me as a heightened awareness of one’s own existence.”
Well Srikanth, this certainly takes this idea much further than Michael Apted did in his series, and MacDonald, who gave us TOUCHING THE VOID and ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER is a talented documentarian who certainly is capable of pulling this off. Your writing is as always superlative, a fact that Jaime rightly asserts above in his own brilliant and appreciative comment.
October 17, 2011 at 11:55 pm
Thanks Sam!
Haven’t seen TOUCHING THE VOID, but have heard extraordinary things about it from people who have been deeply moved by it.
Cheers!
October 21, 2011 at 7:55 pm
This and The Turin Horse especially are two films I am eager to see. Regardless of what Life In A Day says about life or cinema or documentary, I simply like the idea of seeing snapshots of different people’s lives all going on at the same time – all that wonderful energy and joy… I hope it’s a portrait of the Earth that is free of the cynicism and misanthropy we get so often today.
I will return to these reviews when I have watched the films.
Thanks JAFB.
October 24, 2011 at 12:29 am
I’d love to hear what you think of these two films, Stephen. I have a hunch you’ll love LIFE IN A DAY.
Cheers!