Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

rooprect This review is for the moviegoers who love animals and don't particularly enjoy watching snuff films ("snuff" meaning any film where animals or humans are actually killed at the filmmaker's discretion).If live beheadings aren't your thing (animal or human), then you might want to miss this one.First off, "In This World" is a work of fiction, despite its documentary approach which might fool people who are casually flipping channels. Make no mistake, every scene was scripted, the people are actors, and everything we see is dictated by the director Mr. Winterbottom.About 10 minutes into the movie, I suppose to convince us of the authenticity of refugee life (as if we hadn't gotten that from the first 10 minutes of wordless images of the harsh environment), Winterbottom feels the need to stage a water buffalo being slaughtered. She is tied at the feet and unable to resist while 6 men surround her, push her roughly to the ground, pin her down and slowly saw through her neck with a table knife.What is it with art house directors feeling the need to decapitate water buffaloes? First it was that fathead Coppola hacking a water buffalo to bits in "Apocalypse Now", again claiming he just "happened to catch a ritual on film", but as the Ifagao tribe later explained to the press, Mr. Coppola paid them with 2 truckloads of animals to slaughter while he filmed. I'm not sure if Mr. Winterbottom is as much of a bloodthirsty egotist, but regardless of his motivations, the scene was enough to tell me that I needn't waste my time here.There are many reasons to kill. Entertainment is not one of them. Art is not one of them. Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy in a political message that senselessly beheads a living creature? (Ya gotta give Winterbottom credit for beating ISIS to the punch by 10 years.)

Robert_Woodward In This World charts the journey of two Afghan refugee brothers who leave their camp in Peshawar, Pakistan to seek a new life in London. The epic voyage of Jemal and Emayat is an archetypal refugee journey from East to West; in a film lasting just 90 minutes, director Michael Winterbottom weaves together a taut and powerful narrative, encapsulating the encounters and journeys-within-journeys that characterise refugee lives. Relatives of the two brothers give all they can to send them on their way; 'agents' of migration variously help and hinder their journey; policemen fleece them at the border crossings. From Peshawar to Sangatte (where would-be migrants to Britain crowd the French coast), the coherent and transfixing narrative brings together the names and places associated with countless refugee journeys.On Jemal and Enayat's journey there are so many glimpses of the world around – some enlightening, others mysterious – that you could watch this film again and again and be fascinated by new details each time. The early stages of the journey reveal the stunning emptiness of Central Asian landscapes, with vast plains stretching out towards impossibly far-off mountains. The journey across Asia reveals some very different – and occasionally alarming – road usage, whilst the briefest of pauses in rural Iran captures a little of the traditions involved in welcoming and sending-off guests. Among the most striking asides in this film for me is the footage of a cow being slaughtered by the halal method; just a few eye-opening moments are afforded to this episode.The film is, for all these fascinating glimpses, tightly woven around the story of Jemal and Enayat. The portrayal of their difficulties and sufferings is devastatingly powerful; the jerky, panic-stricken footage at the Turkish border and the dark and claustrophobic nightmare of the shipping container remain long and vivid in the memory. Although Winterbottom rarely lets the pace of the film slacken – indeed, he hardly has the option in such a wide-ranging and ambitious undertaking – snatches of conversation, bickering and camaraderie develop the two brothers' characters: they feel like real people. Jemal's humorous stories are particularly important in this regard, and, for me, the parodying of creation myths in these tales also suggests a much-warranted poking of fun at Western audiences, who often take a condescending interest in 'quaint' traditions.Through the use of a voice-over in the early stages of the film and recurring resort to a map to help chart the brothers' journey, Winterbottom adds overtly documentary-style elements to his film. These elements seem to me to jar with the rest of the film; there is no real need to add them to an otherwise immersive and realistic picture. On the other hand, whilst the musical score by Dario Marianelli seems jarring to begin with, it soon becomes an essential part of the film: a theme to match an exhaustingly emotional experience as we watch the migrants on their journey.

Graham Greene Over the last decade, Michael Winterbottom has emerged as perhaps the most intelligent and creative filmmaker working in Britain today. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he is unconcerned by the pressures of current cinematic trends and the importance of the Hollywood movie-system, and has instead 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 of the late 70's and early 80's. His best films have fused dreamlike imagery - often drawing on Bergman and Kieslowski as primary influences - with an almost-documentary-like sense of time, place and character. In This World (2002) takes that idea to new and unexplored levels, giving us a film that sets up an anti-reality that allows the film to drift in and out of the real and the surreal at any given opportunity 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, which 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 particular element that gives the film its unrivalled emotional control and unbelievable sense of tragedy, with lead actors Enayatullah and, in particular, the young Jamal Udin Torabi, both offering outstanding performances.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; hand-held digital video with jump cuts, slow motion, time-lapse, night-vision photography, and colour filters; all being 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 Marcel Zyskind, create some of the most beautiful images of contemporary British cinema.In this World is a film both moving and compassionate without ever feeling the need to rely on cloying sentiment or exposition-by-numbers. Winterbottom skilfully allows the 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 the aforementioned Samira Makhmalbaf as well as Maryiam Parvin Almani and Abbas Kiarostami, as opposed to producing lush, period costume pictures of standard thrillers. Like the works of those individuals, this is important, intelligent, imaginative and above all else, serious film-making, which should be experienced by as many people as possible.

mforrenspamguard It is a magnificently crafted film from a cinematic standpoint, following no formulaic conventions about how to tell a story. It mixes dramatic and documentary techniques to create a moody, unflinching look at the plight of refugees of war. By introducing techniques of voice-over fact presentations and title overlays, it sets up an expectation that we are about to watch a documentary, and that what we are about to see is being filmed as it happens. Yet clearly, it must be a fiction, because it's too sharp, clean, and choreographed to be anything but staged. It maintains a curiously detached and distanced voice, and even the characters themselves seem rather remote from their own lives. They have a sad, worn-down air, and seem to trudge ahead with neither hope nor fear even in the most horrific circumstances. Their detachment from their own lives distances the viewer from them as well, unfortunately.