"All the Invisible Children" is a collective, multinational effort to depict and understand how the world is (mis)treating its own future -- the children of the 2000s. The seven episodes are directed by Mehdi Charef (from Burkina Faso), Emir Kusturica (Serbia-Montenegro), Spike Lee (USA), Kátia Lund (Brazil), Jordan & Ridley Scott (GB), Stefano Veneruso (Italy) and John Woo (China). Some thoughts on each of them:
TANZA -- Mehdi Charef's episode could have been powerful; after all, 10-year-old children carrying machine guns and fighting real wars are a horror the world never knew before the mid-20th century (it's not been going on for decades or centuries, it can be reversed!). Unfortunately, Charef opts for a lush, stylish, Nike-ad-like photography (to portray such a bleak existence!) and a contrived finale that weakens the whole effort. One of the least successful episodes.
UROS -- Then comes Emir Kusturica's volcanic life force! Undoubtedly the best episode, Kusturica uses his megawatt energy to follow young Uros' last day in a reform school -- but is he really willing to leave? In barely a few minutes, Kusturica sketches full characters through wonderful casting and small precise touches, using gypsy music like a snake charmer; and suddenly it's like we've KNOWN those people for year -- the optimistic warden, the clumsy orchestra leader, the sleazy father, the smart smoking brat...Kusturica has this special gift for mixing broad comedy and social comment with lots of sarcasm, and brings up an uncomfortable question -- which is more dangerous for delinquent kids, the violence they have to put up with in reform schools or the one out there in the streets? If you only have time to see ONE episode, this is it, hands down.
Jesus CHILDREN OF America -- Spike Lee's episode is rather irregular, but impressive and important because of its very contemporary and unadorned approach of a complex subject: HIV+ children in the 2000s. How has the world been treating them now that the disease has faded into the background of the media's interest? Lee shows us teenage HIV+ Blanca, chased around by schoolmates who make cruel, remorseless fun(!) of her condition. At home, things also suck, with her junkie, hopelessly irresponsible HIV+ parents (the father is a Gulf War veteran). Blanca startlingly becomes aware that she will have to face a lifetime of prejudice and discrimination and will probably have to deal with her disease all by herself, with very little help from family, friends, school, society or government (and that in America, mind you!!). There is also a great scene about America's fascination (and desensitization) with violence, when Blanca and sassy schoolmate LaQueeta get into a fight at school and a bunch of school kids immediately take out their cell phones to snap shots at their fight. Bull's eye!
BILU E JOÃO - Kátia Lund (co-director of "City of God") goes against the current and makes an optimistic film about one of the harshest places in the world to be a young destitute child: Brazil. The theme is child labor, but you may not even notice it, as Bilu and João seem so resilient and upbeat you might think it's an OK choice for small children to earn their own living carrying and selling heavy junk instead of going to school. The editing is hectic and confusing, and the children are artificially directed to look cute. Misleading, superficial and disappointing.
JONATHAN - Ghastly... Jordan Scott and her father Ridley are so alienated they seem to live in Dreamland...or aristocratic England (which is just as bizarre for the rest of us). This is a crappy, silly fantasy about a disgrace-specialized-photographer (you know the kind) who's having an angst fit. He flashbacks to his idle, privileged, proper British childhood, but finds time to dream of protection for young war refugees. This is the worst sort of patronizing b***s**t, filmed like a country house ad for highbrow magazines. It's a vain, stylized soufflé by people who had nothing important to say.
CIRO -- Ciro is a Neapolitan boy, ignored by his parents, whose petty (and not so petty) thefts are an example of teenage delinquent behavior that's become nearly endemic in Naples and in the world's major cities. There are also very discreet shades of pedophilia. The real interest here, though, is Vittorio Storaro's vibrant, almost palpable cinematography with a mesmerizing color and light palette -- the scenes where Ciro plays with his shadow against the sunlight are astonishingly beautiful and touching. But inexperienced director Stefano Veneruso remains in the shadow too; all we care for are Storaro's canvases.
SONG SONG AND LITTLE CAT -- or how John Woo managed to plagiarize Shirley Temple's pictures! Not since Hollywood-against-Depression 1930s has there been such shameless schmaltz as in this story about two young girls (rich-but-unhappy Song Song and homeless-but-with-endless-joy-in-her- heart Little Cat). It's so sickeningly cute it may give you a hyperglycemia shock. And somebody's got to tell Woo it's time he let go of those irritating slow-motion shots.
"All the Invisible Children" faces a gigantic task: to denounce the horrors children face daily around the world while trying to strengthen our hope in the(ir) future and making us think out ways to help. A VERY hard task, because the real world keeps relentlessly crashing our hopes by the hour. My vote: 6 stars out of 10, though I'll always give a 1,000 stars for anyone ready to make films about unprivileged and abused children, the world's biggest and most urgent political issue.
TANZA -- Mehdi Charef's episode could have been powerful; after all, 10-year-old children carrying machine guns and fighting real wars are a horror the world never knew before the mid-20th century (it's not been going on for decades or centuries, it can be reversed!). Unfortunately, Charef opts for a lush, stylish, Nike-ad-like photography (to portray such a bleak existence!) and a contrived finale that weakens the whole effort. One of the least successful episodes.
UROS -- Then comes Emir Kusturica's volcanic life force! Undoubtedly the best episode, Kusturica uses his megawatt energy to follow young Uros' last day in a reform school -- but is he really willing to leave? In barely a few minutes, Kusturica sketches full characters through wonderful casting and small precise touches, using gypsy music like a snake charmer; and suddenly it's like we've KNOWN those people for year -- the optimistic warden, the clumsy orchestra leader, the sleazy father, the smart smoking brat...Kusturica has this special gift for mixing broad comedy and social comment with lots of sarcasm, and brings up an uncomfortable question -- which is more dangerous for delinquent kids, the violence they have to put up with in reform schools or the one out there in the streets? If you only have time to see ONE episode, this is it, hands down.
Jesus CHILDREN OF America -- Spike Lee's episode is rather irregular, but impressive and important because of its very contemporary and unadorned approach of a complex subject: HIV+ children in the 2000s. How has the world been treating them now that the disease has faded into the background of the media's interest? Lee shows us teenage HIV+ Blanca, chased around by schoolmates who make cruel, remorseless fun(!) of her condition. At home, things also suck, with her junkie, hopelessly irresponsible HIV+ parents (the father is a Gulf War veteran). Blanca startlingly becomes aware that she will have to face a lifetime of prejudice and discrimination and will probably have to deal with her disease all by herself, with very little help from family, friends, school, society or government (and that in America, mind you!!). There is also a great scene about America's fascination (and desensitization) with violence, when Blanca and sassy schoolmate LaQueeta get into a fight at school and a bunch of school kids immediately take out their cell phones to snap shots at their fight. Bull's eye!
BILU E JOÃO - Kátia Lund (co-director of "City of God") goes against the current and makes an optimistic film about one of the harshest places in the world to be a young destitute child: Brazil. The theme is child labor, but you may not even notice it, as Bilu and João seem so resilient and upbeat you might think it's an OK choice for small children to earn their own living carrying and selling heavy junk instead of going to school. The editing is hectic and confusing, and the children are artificially directed to look cute. Misleading, superficial and disappointing.
JONATHAN - Ghastly... Jordan Scott and her father Ridley are so alienated they seem to live in Dreamland...or aristocratic England (which is just as bizarre for the rest of us). This is a crappy, silly fantasy about a disgrace-specialized-photographer (you know the kind) who's having an angst fit. He flashbacks to his idle, privileged, proper British childhood, but finds time to dream of protection for young war refugees. This is the worst sort of patronizing b***s**t, filmed like a country house ad for highbrow magazines. It's a vain, stylized soufflé by people who had nothing important to say.
CIRO -- Ciro is a Neapolitan boy, ignored by his parents, whose petty (and not so petty) thefts are an example of teenage delinquent behavior that's become nearly endemic in Naples and in the world's major cities. There are also very discreet shades of pedophilia. The real interest here, though, is Vittorio Storaro's vibrant, almost palpable cinematography with a mesmerizing color and light palette -- the scenes where Ciro plays with his shadow against the sunlight are astonishingly beautiful and touching. But inexperienced director Stefano Veneruso remains in the shadow too; all we care for are Storaro's canvases.
SONG SONG AND LITTLE CAT -- or how John Woo managed to plagiarize Shirley Temple's pictures! Not since Hollywood-against-Depression 1930s has there been such shameless schmaltz as in this story about two young girls (rich-but-unhappy Song Song and homeless-but-with-endless-joy-in-her- heart Little Cat). It's so sickeningly cute it may give you a hyperglycemia shock. And somebody's got to tell Woo it's time he let go of those irritating slow-motion shots.
"All the Invisible Children" faces a gigantic task: to denounce the horrors children face daily around the world while trying to strengthen our hope in the(ir) future and making us think out ways to help. A VERY hard task, because the real world keeps relentlessly crashing our hopes by the hour. My vote: 6 stars out of 10, though I'll always give a 1,000 stars for anyone ready to make films about unprivileged and abused children, the world's biggest and most urgent political issue.