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One Movie Punch


Mar 15, 2018

Today’s movie is “Human Flow” (2017), Ai Weiwei’s extensive documentary about the global refugee crisis, the largest since World War II. Ai Weiwei travels to refugee camps and migration paths in 23 countries, capturing and presenting segments of the migration process and the diversity of treatment for 65 million refugees worldwide.

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist, working in multiple forms, including documentaries. He is also an outspoken activist who criticizes the current Chinese government, and has been in more than one life-threatening situation because of it. So, getting to see his take on the global refugee crisis caught my interest. The film focuses mostly on man-made refugee crises, whether war or oppression or persecution, with only a few references to climate-caused refugees.

In fact, there’s almost too much in the documentary, at two hours and twenty minutes, but that’s because he went to 23 different countries to see both the common and unique struggles of each refugee community. Ai Weiwei uses smartphone cameras, a few mounted cameras, and high definition drones. The drone shots in particular capture some truly breathtaking scenes and provide new perspectives on the scope of the crisis, especially the slow rises and descents. He also blends everyday scenes that feature genuine human activity with some intentionally constructed and directed shots, especially with the smartphones.

I have two major criticisms for the film. First, I wish more time had been allocated to discussing the upcoming environmental refugee crisis, especially from densely populated coastal cities. Without any major progress on slowing climate change, the number of environmental refugees will quickly outpace political or combat-displaced refugees. And second, the film does a great job of showing the crisis, but it falls short of identifying solutions, which will need to be as varied as the causes and as unique as every situation.

“Human Flow” (2017) is an extensive documentary about the global refugee crisis, which will only worsen as the climate continues to shift and sea levels continue to rise. This film captures both the best and worst of the refugee crisis, framing the story from multiple perspectives, and delivering a massive overview of a crisis caused by many factors. If we can’t figure out how to manage massive migrations as a species, then we may be in for a very difficult century.

Rotten Tomatoes: 93% (CERTIFIED)

Metacritic: 77

One Movie Punch: 8.2/10 

“Human Flow” (2017) is rated PG-13 and is streaming on Amazon Prime.