AI WEIWEI’S HAUNTING ‘HUMAN FLOW’
‘HUMAN FLOW’ WAS FILMED IN 23 COUNTRIES.
“No one leaves their country lightly.”
These six words are uttered by an Afghan refugee as she’s struggling to make her way from her shattered homeland to safety in Europe. Those sentiments form the heart of “Human Flow,” Chinese artist/activist/filmmaker Ai Weiwei’s epic, moving tableau about the massive flood of refugees currently crossing continents and seas seeking security and shelter.
Filmed in 23 countries over the course of a year, the scattershot and lengthy documentary doesn’t attempt to be a news report — there’s no narration and occasionally there are long moments of silence — but the cumulative impact of its often haunting images brings home the plight of millions of the world’s people.
A more traditional documentary — like last summer’s powerful “City of Ghosts,” about refugees from the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, Iraq — might have picked one family or group in one location to follow, giving the audience someone with whom to easily identify. Instead, Weiwei takes viewers to a variety of often brutal and deadly landscapes — Jordan, Bangladesh and Turkey among them — to illustrate the overwhelming tide of need. Some onscreen refugee facts are provided (more than 1 million refugees came through Greece in 2015 and 2016, for example) and, at times, the subjects speak for themselves, occasionally with their backs to the camera. When one man breaks down in grief and guilt after relating how he lost five family members on his perilous journey, it’s a painful gut punch.
Yet, almost as often, Weiwei will just hold the camera on his silent subjects, forcing the viewer to really look at them and recognize their humanity, even though we don’t get to know them or their particular story.
Weiwei relishes shooting from overhead, pulling back or zooming in, to show the expanse of desperation. It’s one thing to know about a massive refugee camp on the Syrian-Jordanian border or a long line of people snaking their way from Syria to Europe by foot, it’s another thing to actually see it stretching to the horizon.
There are other moments that belie their pain through beauty, creating emotional dissonance for the viewer. Retreating ISIS fighters setting fires to the oil fields of Mosul, Iraq, is an ugly act, adding a final horrific, commercial insult to cultural injury for the average Iraqi citizen. But the images of the billowing clouds of smoke also make for breathtakingly striking visuals.
More annoying is how Weiwei sometimes inserts himself as part of the narrative. There are moments when it’s justified (his dealings with a U.S. border patrol agent) and other times when it’s not (he’s seen getting a haircut).
Because of the number of places he insisted on visiting, some areas get short shrift. The U.S.-Mexico situation feels tacked on in comparison to the time spent in Greece, Germany, Lebanon, along the Greece-Macedonian border or at sea in the Mediterranean.
Still, “Human Flow” ends on a note of melancholic hope, and the overall effect is an appreciation for the enormity and seriousness of the refugee situation.
No one leaves their country lightly, indeed.