Human Flow

The Human Flow is an epic tale of our time. The worldwide refugee crisis we are witnessing will almost certainly be seen as one of our defining features. We ignore it at our peril.

Presenting the massive migration of people in broad, panoramic views, the director Ai Weiwei delivers his message in visual form, without explanations or analysis. The film contains scenes of refugees on the move or in encampments in 23 countries and we are reminded that it is a small part of the over 60 million refugees that have lost their homes  in the world today. Ai Weiwei doesn't offer solutions - those are left to the viewer.

The length of the film, 2 1/2 hours, is part of Ai Weiwei's message. The enormity of the situation cannot be defined by eliminating any of its parts. Many of the drone shots of refugees on the move and of their encampments are breathtakingly beautiful - beautiful and tragic. This is our world and we need to respond to it, he seems to be saying. He has been criticized for putting himself into a few of the scenes, but others feel this is a necessary reminder of the source of these perceptions and images into which he has poured his heart and soul.

Ai Weiwei is himself a remarkable artist and activist. He lived the first 16 years of his life in a hard labour camp in the Gobi Desert where his poet father was exiled for being classified a "decadent intellectual" along with half a million others during the revolution in China. His mother, a writer, was also condemned to sharing this hard life. Ai Weiwei, who spent 81 days in jail when he tried to visit his father in China in later life, eventually settled in Berlin, Germany, where he is known for his moving and monumental installations dealing with refugees ((14,000 lifejackets collected off the shores of Lesvos in 2016) and children (backpacks) in memory of 5,000 Chinese school children who lost their lives in a poorly constructed building in an earthquake.

Few attempts have been made to even define the worldwide refugee situation, let alone solve it. We will have time to hear audience reactions and views at the end of the film.