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Life In A Day Movie

July 30, 2011 by · Comments Off on Life In A Day Movie 

Life In A Day MovieLife In A Day Movie, In Thornton Wilder’s classic play “Our Town”, the late Emily decides to revisit the most important day of your life. But she has a warning: “Choose any day of your life to be important enough.”

At that time ran through my mind as I watched Kevin Macdonald’s “Life in a Day”, which includes hundreds of times without importance acquired unexpected importance just by being included in this kaleidoscopic film.

Macdonald and his editor, Joe Walker, drew thousands of YouTube videos that were shot in dozens of countries on the same day: July 24, 2010.

Some tell a story, some create a mood, and some emphasize two essential questions: “What do you like” and “What are you afraid?” (The long list of the latter includes zombies, ghosts and snakes).

Images from the opening to celebrate the beginning, including a mother with a newborn baby. We see the beginning day of work in different households are linked by morning rituals. The alarms go off, the cockcrows, brushing teeth; gradually rising effort becomes an epic motion.

As the sun rises, music and dance become an almost necessary (and often joyful) part of the preparation of food. A child has a tantrum, a mother scolds. A fabric sticks relentlessly, hilariously, with a man’s shoe.

A vulnerable patient in the hospital recovering from surgery is performed being treated so well. A gardener working in Dubai, Indian claims “very happy” even though it sends most of his salary home.

“I love my life, I love my Lord,” proclaims a man. “I really love my refrigerator,” says another. Nervous coming out to his grandmother, a gay man explains that he loves her boyfriend: “It is not a disease.”

The tracking cameras hula-hoopers, paratroopers, swimmers and press photographers, and check the policy in Korea and Afghanistan. References to “Star Wars” suggest how far American culture has penetrated.

What could have been a trick is to be philosophical and sincere. The last sequence, a strange mixture of apology, regret and hope, is especially poignant.

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