In this World

Review posted on 22 February 2006 by Alice Curteis, World-wise reviewer

In This World tells the story of two young Afghan cousins, a teenage boy and a young man, as they make their way from a Pakistani refugee camp to London in a search of a better life.

Michael Winterbottom wanted to show the lengths people are prepared to go to make this extraordinarily difficult, dangerous and expensive journey away from their families and all they have ever known.

He traced the route himself and then returned to Pakistan to start filming; he then incorporated real events that he had witnessed or heard about, such as soldiers opening fire on the fugitives as they were making the hazardous crossing over the mountains between Iran and Turkey in a blizzard.

The two central characters are not actors and this brings a yet more powerful sense of realism to the story. One of them in fact later used the money he earned from the film to pay people traffickers to get him to London.

Rating: 4/5