Another Day of Life (2018) Reviews

• Rizsard Kapuscinsky or how to give voice to poor and wretched peoples

  jmrecillas-834352019-04-22

  Rizsard Kapuscinsky is one of the most important reporters of the XX Century, and someone who witnessed some of the biggest war crimes in Europe, Latin America and Africa. His books and reportages are ineludible documents to understand all the interests behind war, invasions and geopolitics. It is not surprise that any American viewer say nothing about this animated documentary. It is very probably that American audiences doesn't like at all what Kapuscinski has written, and the way he is portrayed on here. Very far from the way are portayed reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the Watergate affair. In that case, there is no ideology. America film and history are made to believe that what both Washington Post reporters it is what investigative journalism is all about. This is, for say the least, an arrogant point of view. America is not the world, nor even the center of the word. Is one pole. The other is Russia, and the former USSR. This animated documentary involves both poles from the Cold War, and is not, and cannot be by any means precisely a fruit of objectivity. But, as Kapuscinski put it in many other of his reporter works, and is put it that way on here, his job is to give word to those are condemned to be forgotten, those who usually die amidst oblivion and never are listen, those who are needed and poor, just like Jesus say on his preach, which not means I compared Jesus with Kapuscinski. Animation is awesome on this documentary, the way are blended original footage and pictures of many of the depicted characters is just amazing, and shows how American power is capable of the worst atrocities only to support its foreing policy of destruction and empoverity entire countries. The Angola conflict is one of those defeites that American doesn't want to remember, after Vietnam. Of course, it would be naïve to consider that this documentary support openly Russian interventionism, since they abandon too Angola, only to see how Cuba took their place in the conflict and made it to succeed. There is no such a thing called neutral interventionism, but Kapuscinski knows that he has to be the voice of those who hasn't and seem condemned to be crashed by any outside political power. "This is the way I look" is a frase repeated several times in the documentary, as if little people raise his voice to be remeber in the future and not fall into oblivion. That's the very point on what Kapuscinski was doing all his life, and for that will be remembered as one of the biggest and more influential reporters of the last century. A very impressive documentary, a must see to unveil our prejudices about interventionism.

• Sadly I wasn't as impressed here as I hoped I could be

  Horst_In_Translation2019-04-22

  "Another Day of Life" is a co-production between no less than 5 European countries from 2018. As a consequence you will also hear all kinds of languages, but English is dominant in dialogs. This movie was directed by Raúl de la Fuente and Damian Nenow and for both it was their first full feature film effort after a nice amount of short film releases. The duo was also in charge of writing here and actually not just these two. Another writer here would be Ryszard Kapuscinski and he wrote the book that the film is based on and we also see him from beginning to end here as this is his story, his journey as a journalist through Angola in days of the Cold War when nothing was really safe there, such as to how much of an extent the country would really be pulled into the Cold War, to what extent the Soviet Union would be involved and not just Cuba and how far South Africa would go in their attempts to push through the goals of the United States of America. Fittingly, there is a brief Kissinger interview seen at the end. Anyway, back to Kapuscinski. He arrives in Angola and keeps travelling further and further south where he meets some interesting people that played a role in war-ridden Angola. Some of them were still alive when the film was made, so you see them back then and in the now as they make brief statements about the situation back then and what connected them with Kapuscinski who died over a decade ago. This is an animated movie, not the kind that is for kids and adults alike, but really one only for grown-ups. Very young audiences should not have to watch the violence and they would not really be interested in the story I think. Similar to Waltz with Bashir, an Oscar nominated film from about a decade ago that you probably came across already if you consider watching this one. Sadly, that Israeli movie was far more memorable to me compared to this one. One problem I got here is that the back and forth between animation and live action did not always feel right or even necessary. The scenes when we see a car drive down a road are one thing and at least visually the switch somewhat made sense there is not for any other reason. But when we have very early on, a group of Angolans dancing out of nowhere just for fun, it felt truly pointless. Besides, in terms of the animation only, it took me a while to get used to the looks and especially in the characters and their (sometimes delayed) movements I wasn't sold. The voice acting was okay. The non-people aspects convinced me too visually. There is one pretty beautiful shot at the very end when we have the main character look out of a window. All in all, there were scenes and sequences I enjoyed, especially everything that involved Carlota and her surprising death. There the switch between animation and live action, especially photographs, was done very well. But afterward the film becomes mediocre again sadly. Even for 85 minutes, the scenes I enjoyed in terms of quantity weren't enough for a positive recommendation. Another thing I struggled with was the sound. I don't think it was a problem of the copy of the film or the theater I watched it in, but the film itself. They did not really do themselves a great favor with the music and that as well as the sound effects felt way too loud compared to the spoken parts. It did get annoying quickly and stayed that way mostly until the end. Nonetheless I can see why the film won so many awards and scored even more nimnations, also some prestigious ones, as you don't see animated films about political history too frequently and Angola is also a subject that has not been dealt with a lot in the past. So it was something new and something unique. Shame the execution in detail could not really win me over here. And I am saying this as somebody who is a sucker for animated films. But this one I give a thumbs-down. Not recommended and overall i cannot deny I was glad it was such a rather brief movie.