Review of Life in a Day (2011) by Halfwelshman — 06 Nov 2011
Life in a Day attempts the impossible - representing the experiences of the entire world on 24th July 2010. While this task could never be achieved to perfection, director Kevin MacDonald and his army of Youtube contributors manage to create a fascinating smorgasbord of the day-to-day experiences of people from all over the world.
We witness a day in the life of a huge range of people, with vastly differing cultures, beliefs and levels of affluence. It must have been such a challenge for the filmmakers to choose what to put in the film from the thousands of clips submitted, and from these clips create a coherent narrative.
There's no beating about the bush - yes, Life in a Day is an undeniably artificial creation, the clips used were chosen at the expense of others in order to put forward a particular message, a very subjective world view.
That said, the film is extremely entertaining, sometimes emotional, and often profound. The majority of the film is made up of a compilation of clips of whatever aspect of the contributor's life they wished to film, presented either in chronological order (we begin with a set of clips from early morning, then waking up, breakfast, going to work etc) or organised along a particular theme/line of thought (there's sections covering everything from relationships to water).
Where Life in a Day really stands out is in the three questions that were asked to the video uploaders - 1. What do you have in your pocket or handbag? 2. What do you love? and 3. What do you fear? The answers to these three seemingly simple questions, divided throughout the film, provide some of its most memorable moments.
The answers are so varied, so individual, that they veer between the conventional, the unexpected and the shocking. While the film clearly couldn't represent everyone on the planet, you can't fault it for showing a huge variety of different opinions of the world.
Life in a Day is nothing if not ambitious, and this huge undertaking has truly turned out to be something really special. By presenting snapshots of people's lives we are allowed to witness the beauty, the comedy and the tragedy of Planet Earth, and you are taken on a huge emotional rollercoaster while spectating.
Simply put, it's the film event of a generation - there's really nothing else like it.
This review of Life in a Day (2011) was written by Halfwelshman on 06 Nov 2011.
Life in a Day has generally received positive reviews.
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