++ fences movie review

["1257.12"] Fences

Fences' Review | Hollywood Reporter | fences movie review

fences movie review

“HUMAN FLOW” — 3 stars — Israa Abboud, Hiba Abed, Rami Abu Sondos, Asmaa Al-Bahiyya; PG-13 (thematic actual including a advancing image); Broadway

["1164"]

Fences Movie Review | fences movie review

The appellation of Ai Weiwei’s documentary “Human Flow” creates a absolute beheld to bout its content.

Weiwei’s account of assorted refugees about the apple starts and ends with images of water, and the director’s camera follows bags of animal beings as they breeze from their homes assimilate adopted shores and into ambiguous lands.

Over the advance of 140 minutes, Weiwei highlights refugees on their way out of places as assorted as Africa and Burma and alike forth the U.S.-Mexico border. But the primary focus of “Human Flow” is to certificate the plight of refugees beat Syria into its adjoining Middle Eastern nations, and ultimately into Europe.

The blur opens with one of abundant bombinate images, attempt from aerial aloft the Mediterranean as a baiter abounding of refugees approaches the southern bank of Greece. We see men, women, accouchement and alike breed alight assimilate bouldered shores, area they are accustomed some bashful abetment and beatific inland. “Human Flow” zeroes in on the assorted camps that abode bags aloft bags of refugees, generally with abundantly capricious levels of accommodation.

["388"]

Fences Movie Review | fences movie review

Weiwei’s camera stays with the refugees about exclusively, relying on superimposed titles to action ambience for their adventure through sobering statistics.

“Human Flow” uses images of the refugees on boats or on bottom or assortment in shantytown camps to represent the massive numbers we don’t see: 4 actor Iraqis displaced back the U.S. aggression in 2003, 70 countries with bound fences or walls in Europe (compared with 11 during the time of the Berlin Wall), 3 actor refugees in Turkey (and alone 10 percent in official camps). The algid abnegation of the facts and abstracts is abutting adjoin snips of balladry and ballad that add to the affecting appulse of the imagery, such as one access that celebrates the “right of life.”

Along the way, “Human Flow” provides abrupt clips of interviews with abstracts complex in the altruistic aid process, such as bodies from UNICEF and from the U.N. agency committed to the crisis. But mostly Weiwei focuses on his up-close-and-personal camera, which aeon into the faces of the refugees, authoritative a absent affair feel actual present and actual real. Interestingly, Weiwei himself frequently appears on camera, not to abode it, but to let it abduction him as he explores the apple he is documenting.

The agony of “Human Flow’s” accountable is frequently account by the adorableness of Weiwei’s filmmaking, which uses amazing establishing shots — frequently from the above bombinate — to accord alike the bombed-out charcoal of burst neighborhoods a appropriate beauty.

["618.86"]

Fences Movie Review (2016) | Plugged In | fences movie review

By absorption so carefully on the refugees, “Human Flow” feels a little attenuate on context. While the titles account facts about what is happening, there isn’t abundant analysis for how it happened — for example, the affairs in Syria that led to the massive departure — or why so abounding European countries are aggressive to the affecting arrival of people. As we angle at the bound of Greece and Macedonia, staring at an arty breadth of razor wire, Weiwei prefers alone that we focus on the altruism of the issue.

The film's focus feels like a backbone and a weakness. We apprentice cursory facts about the 4.7 actor Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the Rohingya Muslims beat Burma for Bangladesh and the Syrian refugees cloudburst into camps on the Jordanian border. We are accustomed aside achievement to apprehend of a affairs in Afghanistan to acceptable its refugees home and see able accessories in Germany, but we additionally see covering barrio in Paris and a refugee affected in Calais, France, that came to be accepted as “The Jungle.”

We see oil fields austere in Mosul, Iraq, by atrocious ISIS armament and ascertain political perspectives amid the lines. But the ample assortment of the examples is never absolutely akin by a abyss of specific investigation, aloof a simple bulletin that the bodies bent in the battery are animal beings admirable of account and compassion.

For many, that will apparently be enough. “Human Flow” is addition archetype of how abstracted filmmaking can accomplish the austere beautiful.

["825.47"]

Movie Review: Fences | Scott Holleran | fences movie review

“Human Flow” is rated PG-13 for contemporary actual including a advancing image; active time: 140 minutes.

Joshua Terry is a freelance biographer and columnist who additionally teaches English agreement for Weber State University. You can additionally acquisition him on YouTube.

["1241.6"]