Visitors Review

ajs-10 (2012-05-26 06:21)

Excellent documentary... Well worth a look...

I remember the beginnings of this idea being released into the world.We, the world in general, were asked to film something, anything, on24th July 2010 and post it to a special YouTube page. 80,000 clips andfilms were submitted, totalling 4,500 hours of footage from 192countries. It fell to director Kevin Macdonald and his team to whittlethis down into a 90 minute film. And boy what a film! There are veryfew documentaries I've seen that are better than this. Such a diversityof cultures, subjects and people, it really opened my eyes.The format basically follows the time arc of the day, from the earlyhours of the morning right through to the following midnight. Therewere pieces from a vast array of peoples from all around the globe,some quite touching, some disturbing and some just plain silly. I mustwarn you that there are one or two scenes that some may find upsettingand there is a little swearing. Quite a variation in picture qualitydidn't really detract from what is quite a stunning piece of work. It'sall held together with a beautiful musical soundtrack by HarryGregson-Williams and Matthew Herbert.I really enjoyed watching the diversity on show here and I had to keepreminding myself that all these things happened on the same day. Forme, the star of the show was the Korean guy who was cycling around theworld. He just wanted to reunite North and South Korea and he had suchoptimism. It's beautifully put together with various themes runningthrough it. Never boring, no voice-over, just the people of the worldtelling their own stories… Highly Recommended.My score: 8.9/10 IMDb Score: 8.1/10 (based on 1,675 votes at the time of going topress).

James Bonney (2012-05-25 09:28)

Exhilarating ride through 1 day of us living on Earth

Just saw this at a preview and its mind blowing. As you might expect from a Youtube content generated film, the clipsand there are hundreds...are short, punchy and vary from fuzzy mobilefootage, of a lonely girl talking at her phone, a guy asking a girl ona date, to timelapsed high definition clouds brewing into a darkthunderous storm, suns setting over Himalayan peak, and goats staringknowingly at me ...more goats please! All walks of life, all parts of the world, everywhere on this littleblue planet is the location, where shared themes common to all humanityare explored and humoured, exploited and tragically true of usall...there's a lingering sadness which underlies the frequent fun andhumour so many of these clips portray...us making the best of what wehave, which for so many is nothing much at all, and yes there isdarkness, a lot of it, but what we do, our nature is to laugh at it,and celebrate the victory of being alive. The resulting feature length montage is profound, emotional, hard towatch at times, and if you're not empathising with the rest of theworld and grateful of your shared humanity by the time the snail mindsits own business...you ain't' go no soul, noooooo, none! Expect more of this, coz its all true, and just a glimpse of what thedigital age can do.

valleyjohn (2012-05-23 05:27)

Brilliant editing

Imagine a film , shot in one day , by 80,000 people. it soundsunbelievable but that is exactly what "Life in day" is. Thisfascinating film is made from footage of YouTube clips from peopleasked to film there everyday activities and do you know what ? Itreally works.How the director managed to edit down 4,500 hours of footage is beyondme but the final cut is excellent none the less.If there ever was a film just about people , this is it. In a way itrestores your faith in human nature when you watch this and it's also afilm that is so fascinating the time flies by.If your a fan of the YouTube phenomenon or not i recommend Life in aday.

Vince27 (2012-05-22 21:45)

Unbelievable

Life in a Day is a remarkable, emotional and an inspiring film full oflife.The film is shot by hundreds of people, from around the world, who senttheir own personal videos into YouTube to make this stunning picture.It is hard to really review the film because of what it is about: life.The film captures life for anything on Earth, whether it be a human oran animal. Cultures, religions, ways of life and philosophies are alltouched upon in this amazing piece of history. Never before has theentire world been seen in a film such as it has in this picture.People from all over the world are captured living as they do normally.There is no Hollywood, there are no actors, no directors and nowriters. This film is about people. It is obviously very difficult to explain what life is and I am notgoing to do it. But this film does it and it does it in a way anybodycould understand.Life in a Day is awe-inspiring in the way it captures life on Earthwithout being sentimental. At the end of the film, there won't be asoul in the world that isn't touched.

kerick08 (2012-05-22 13:57)

The Power of Connection

Life in a Day is a historic cinematic experiment that attempts tocapture what life looks like on one day, July 24th, 2010, around theentirety of the world. Thousands of hours of video were captured andthen compiled to give a glimpse into what constitutes an average dayamongst humanity. This film is ultimately about connection; the connection of humans toone another and all of the mundane, regular, everyday things that weshare despite our differences in culture, location, and upbringing. Thefact that we all sleep. We all wake up in the morning. We all eatbreakfast. We brush our teeth. We walk around. We smile. We love. Wefear. We breathe. This film is an affirmation of the simple joys andsorrows that we experience merely as a result of living on this earthand being human. It is an affirmation of life at its rawest, truest,grittiest, and loveliest. The summarization of this project can be found in the words a youngteenage girl who vocalizes that, although she went through her wholeday with nothing particularly out of the ordinary occurring, merely bypartaking in this social experiment and something greater than just herown life, she was left with the feeling that something amazing washappening. This simple statement speaks of our innate human desire to be a part ofsomething that is larger than just ourselves. We long to belong, toconnect, to be understood, and to be a part of something meaningful andworthwhile. This film speaks directly to this need and is able totranscend religion, culture, age, and gender to get at the heart ofwhat it means to be a human being on earth today. What an amazing timecapsule treasure for generations to come.

Greg Phipps (2012-05-22 09:04)

Excellent documentary, Best Documentary material IMO.

A year ago from yesterday, I knew about the experiment and what wasgoing to happen. However, I was too young to enter... so... thatsucked. So time passed and I sort of forgot about the movie. Then theyannounced that they would be releasing the movie on Sunday (yesterday)and I knew I had to see it. So, I went to a sold-out screening of thefilm, and they showed the top 3 fan-made trailers for the movie, andsome Q&A afterwords, as a little added bonus of seeing the film on thefirst day. And let me just say that this movie is AMAZING. I thought it was goingto be kind of cheesy, and it sort of was, it was a little cheesy, butthis film was near perfection. It captured the essence of life onplanet Earth in one day. From America to Afghanistan to Korea toAfrica, the film was better than any Discovery Channel BS documentaryseries. The movie showed all different types of cultures, religions andpractices, from the Muslims celebrating Full Moon (I think) toAmericans getting up and going to work, this film, as I've said manytimes before, captures the essence of life. I definitely, ABSOLUTELY recommend seeing this movie. If you should seeany documentary in my opinion, either see this or Exit Through The GiftShop. Or both. But, nonetheless, this one. I won't be surprised whenthis movie wins an Academy Award, because it's the best darndocumentary I've seen released this year.This film is happy, funny, sad, and emotional where it needs to be.They stated in the Q&A afterwords that the original cut was 3 hrs long,and I think that that cut may have been a little too long.Final verdict, if there's one documentary that you should see withinthe next month, it's this. If you're a YouTuber, see this movie. Ifyou're a human being who breathes in oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide,and has the ability to go to the movie theater where they are screeningthis movie, SEE THIS MOVIE.

Steve Pulaski (2012-05-19 10:06)

Life as we know it on film

In late July, filmmaker Kevin MacDonald asked the Youtube community tofilm themselves on July 24, 2010 and submit the video to the Life in aDay Youtube page. The videos would be edited and made into a ninetyminute feature film that would premiere at the Sundance Film Festivalin January 2011. It was such a creative idea I couldn't wait to get myFlip and record myself, sadly, the line "must be 18 years or older"prevented me. Whatever, I was still excited to see what others wouldfilm and submit to this film. Who wouldn't? Kevin MacDonald stated "itwould be kind of like a time capsule that people in the future, maybetwenty, thirty, forty fifty, a hundred, two hundred years could saywow, that's what life was like." To be fair, Life in a Day did comewith a price. The submission rate was unprecedented, and I assume lotsof people didn't make the final cut for the film. If they did, theirclips were butchered to probably lest than a third of what they were. Afilm like this has many positives, but a lot of negatives as well.When documenting a film of this large magnitude, there are a plethoraof negatives I must state. One, I feel like the people that producedtheir own clips were cheated in a way. Both Kevin MacDonald and RidleyScott are smart people with a lot of knowledge, but it is sort ofscummy that they get to collect the check for their small part in thefilm, while the true stars were the Youtube community. To my knowledge,the "actors" in the film don't see a dime of what this movie sees.Probably just a typed letter on Youtube.Another aspect that sort of brings the film down is the fact that thereare numerous scenes that take place outside of America, or in differentcountries. That's perfectly fine, I was interested in seeing whatpeople in Egypt, Africa, Europe, Asia, or where ever would film. Thedownside is the film is absent of subtitles, making it impossible tofigure out what these people are saying. I bet the producers themselveshad no idea what these people were saying either. You can see whatthey're doing, but that only gives you the vague representation of whatis going on.Now that I've dug through the flaws, lets talk about the positives. Forthe most part, the film is shot rather well. Keep in mind, thousands ofcameras were used to shoot this movie without a doubt. Different megapixel count, different size, quality, capability, editing, whatever.It's hard to make something look that nice when numerous cameras wereinvolved. Some stuff in this film was mobile phone footage which lookedwell. Whoever cleaned up the audio/video on here is a technical genius.My favorite scene in this film was probably the homosexual teenagerconfessing his true sexual orientation to his grandmother. You can seethat he is truly nervous, and scared of her reactions to his love life.We don't hear the grandma, but we see the teen's reactions. This is thekind of thing that belongs in this movie. In ten, twenty, thirty,forty, fifty, etc years homosexuals will hopefully be accepted and notridiculed for their being, and teens won't have to worry aboutconfessing what they believe is right. They'll be accepted, and freefrom homophobic bullying.Numerous other scenes in Life in a Day are very heartfelt andemotional. The end clip is very near and dear to your hearts, and thefilm does it's best to fit these clips in chronological order becausethere is no true storyline. Life in a Day is an inventive piece of filmthat I had the pleasure to see while it was streaming Thursday January27, 2011 on it's own Youtube channel live from The Sundance FilmFestival. Such a surreal experience, and such an unforgettable film.Starring: The Youtube Community. Directed by Kevin MacDonald and RidleyScott.

kosmasp (2012-05-18 18:21)

Reality Cinema

I can see why people would be overwhelmed by this. And not only peoplewho know the guys who submitted footage for this, but quite a lot ofpeople. And while they tried to put the videos together in a fashionthat has a narrative (or something similar to it), it still shows, thatwe have random people having random discussions (ranging from funny totragic to inspiring).It is nicely done and I pretty much enjoyed it. The "filmmakers" (orthe ones who cut together the videos they received) had a difficult jobto do. Going through all that footage is not that easy. Especiallybecause you have no idea what you will find in it. And while the movieis more "real" than reality TV, it still didn't ring masterpiece in mybook. But that is taste for you ... We are all different as this moviedoes show us to an extend ...

Nico Collu (2012-05-18 18:12)

A True Accomplishment

I just watched the world premiere of this movie live through YouTube onthe 28th of January starting at about 03:00 AM.Let me start by saying that this is an amazing piece of joined art.I could write tons of spoilers in this review, but it would never addup to actually watching the movie. From the beginning it adds to yourlife a sense of emotion, a sense for wanting to travel the world, asense of connection, a sense that, yes, it is a cliché statement; Weare one.It touching every emotion; I cannot put into words what I want toexpress.A Life in a Day is a movie of the ordinary yet extraordinary life ofanyone at any given time.You cannot help but feel like you are a part of every scene; of everypart of this earth; of every human being presented in this movie.Watching this at home in the early morning, I do not feel isolated inthis room - I feel like I am part of a whole, flying high, ready tolive my life every day.Like the reviewer before me, "If you don't feel empathy for all in thisvideo, something is wrong with you!" Watch the movie! - Nico Collu

twilightasm15 (2012-05-17 20:03)

In a nutshell it was fantastic.

This film is incredible beyond belief. There's not much for me tocriticize at all. The flow of clips got ever so slightly offbeat...meaning it got a bit boring. Also I don't remember there beingsubtitles. I kind of want to know what they are all saying.I dounderstand that there were a lot of different languages and theyprobably didn't have the budget to translate so much for the release atSundance. I hope they subtitle it when it hits theaters in June. Iloved this movie with all my heart and when it hits theaters, I amgoing. Also when it goes to DVD I'm getting my copy. There isn't a goodreason not to like this film. It is happy, funny, heart-wrenching andoverall one of the greatest movies I have seen.

DICK STEEL (2012-05-17 09:13)

A Nutshell Review: Life in a Day

YouTube, LG, Tony and Ridley Scott of Scott Free Productions, KevinMacDonald taking up directing responsibilities, and some 4500submissions filtered down to just 90 minutes worth of footage. That'swhat Life in a Day is about, where anyone from around the world cansubmit a film shot on 24 July 2010 and be counted toward what would bethis feature film that's just what its title says - Life in a Day - andthe end result is something so simple in collaborative concept, but sopacking such a powerful punch.From time to time you'll wonder just about how many stories are outthere at any given time, with millions of people each having somethingto say, and experience to share, that a snapshot at any time ofeveryone's collective existential moment will take us more than alifetime to go through it, if we can capture it all in linear fashionand sieve through it like a video on fast forward. That's how Life in aDay felt, although we're spared a largely impossible task, havingthings whittled down to just one day, and submitted through technologyto the producers of the film who will then have the task of distillingthe aesthetically beautiful, meaningful shots into a coherentnarrative.Beginning from the wee hours of the morning and ending literally at2359hrs, we see how people from around the world think up of similarideas in their submissions, capturing moments which become timestampsof the day such as meals and routine rituals that find common groundwherever we are in the world. Landscapes also become very popularchoices of capture, from dawns and dusks peeking through clouds, eachdifferent yet being the same the same source, to midnight electricalcharges striking across the night time sky.It's a mixed bag rolled up together from disparate sources put togetherin rhythmic, poetic terms, engaging and of course keeping your eye outfor something that could have come from your own shores. It showcasesdiversity, yet have undertones of similarity in aspects of our lives,highlighting differences in geography yet sharing a constant range ofemotions evoked and experienced. It's the human condition on displaywith all things almost beautiful, balanced with moments of poignancyand the mundane told through creative angles.From the lot given you'll definitely have your favourite - mineinvolves one very early on in the film with a Japanese father and youngson waking up in the day, shot through fish-eyed lens - or favourites,and I'm really curious if all 4500 shorts have been uploaded somewhereon the Youtube channel for everyone to freely access and take a look atthe raw footage ourselves. Recommended!

Robert (2012-05-17 00:23)

Wow...

Real life is scary and intense and hard sometimes. But real life isreal. There's no escaping it. You either accept it or... well I don'tknow. But a few years ago when YouTube/Google asked us, the people, tosubmit a video or two of our life on that day, I of course took thechallenge. Wasn't surprised to not see my video, but I'm sure mostdidn't see their videos there.This is literately just a series of videos people submitted. Some withmusic, others without. The sequence was what made this interesting. Itshowed early morning, then morning, afternoon and evening. They had afew questions they had answered, including what's in your pocket, whatdo you love the most, and what do you fear. The answers were mindboggling.I was amazed by what YouTube/Google included in the videos. Being in avery politically correct world where you don't offend people and thusreligion and politics are never mentioned, they included some. The onethat impressed me was a guy in a ranch with his son and wife, who saidhe loved his "Heavenly Father" the most. Reality. Some people arereligious, some aren't.There were a few scenes I'd rather had not seen, including animalcruelty, but I accepted it because it's reality. That's how life isevery day. There were scenes of people happy, some almost angry, somesad and crying. This was blended in perfectly. And they ended itbeautifully as well.I rate this 8/10 for a very well done sequence.

Hellmant (2012-05-15 17:15)

Somewhat of a groundbreaking experiment!

'LIFE IN A DAY': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five) This YouTube experiment documentary film was assembled from 80,000 userclips filmed in over 192 nations around the world in one day. ProducerRidley Scott and director Kevin Macdonald asked YouTube users aroundthe world to submit clips they would film of themselves (on SaturdayJuly 24th, 2010) to be compiled in to a feature length documentary film(sort of a time capsule video for generations to look back on for yearsto come). They received 4,500 hours of footage and users who's videoswere selected to be used in the film were credited as co-directors. 25%of the video used in the film was provided through cameras sent toparts of the world without that previous resource (in order to fullycover life throughout the entire world). Macdonald has said hisinspiration for the film was to expand the average YouTube video into'art'. Some have criticized him and Scott for being 'pretentious' withtheir ideals for the film while others have praised them. The resultingproduct is a mixed bag of art and entertainment that is sometimesmasterful filmmaking at it's best and equally boring and pointless atother times. As a whole I'd say it's a pretty impressive achievement.The film is just a series of clips from various YouTube user videosmixed together just as randomly, with no common narrative or storylines. Individual segments usually have a common thread linking themtogether but as a whole the film kind of just rambles on for almost 95minutes. At times it's very touching, intimate and beautiful and atother times it does seem pointless, uninvolving and dull. For this ithas been heavily criticized as well as praised. I'm sure which clipsare interesting and amusing to some will be boring and tiresome toothers (and vice versa). I think there's enough here to please morethan bore most viewers though (unless you just have a really shortattention span or ADD and are addicted to MTV style filmmaking). Ifyou're the type of viewer that needs each YouTube video to be twominutes or less in order to consider watching it than this probablyisn't the movie for you. With that said I do think this movie isprobably better viewed in segments. As a whole, no matter how big of anattention span or artistic patience you might have, it's bound to gettiresome in places. The segments watched individually wouldn't havethat effect though (this is true of a lot of other movies as well).The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2011 andthe event was streamed live on YouTube. It's now available on DVD andcan be streamed in it's entirety on YouTube for free. I submittedseveral clips to the film production that were not included in thefinished movie. Three were available for viewing on the page's site,along with most other entries (I deleted one though), and the otherswere not accepted because they violated one of the film's guidelines orrules, I think (I'm not sure which though). I think my clips areamusing and fascinating on their own but I can understand why theyweren't included in the film, they wouldn't really have fit well intoany of the montages. Having seen the film now I have a better idea ofwhat types of things I should have filmed (which more likely would havebeen included). I like the way Macdonald and team put the film togetherfor the most part and I think it results in something very beautiful,moving and breathtaking. Despite it's short comings I think the filmworks as a whole and is somewhat of a groundbreaking experiment thatshould be viewed by all and probably will be by viewed by many, fondly,for many years to come.Watch my 'LIFE IN A DAY' clips here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1rDIY0kLvk and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7WbpOnI3nYWatch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKd3ajZbngo

palindromeemordnilap (2012-05-15 03:34)

Simply Overrated

We're entering a period in cinematic history where people hear about a"cool" idea for a film and accept it as being breathtaking andfantastic because the idea dictates that it should be. The idea forLife in a Day was interesting as the technological developments aroundthe world mean that making this film would only be possible now,however the execution of this idea was sub-par.My main criticism of the film comes from the cheap attempts the filmuses to evoke emotion in the viewer. For example, in order to evokesympathy there was almost a non-exhaustive showing of poor people. Toevoke humour, the film relied on people pulling silly faces or doingsilly things which may have been funny if the viewer was there or knewthe people involved, however it seems that the makers of the film wereignorant of the fact that the viewer does not. These attempts to evokeemotion can be easily seen through as a failure to connect the audienceto those on screen.My secondary criticism of the film is the style that they presented theclips in. I believe that the film would have been a lot more enjoyablehad the producers decided to steer the film into more of an educationalexperience rather than an artistic venture. The film portrays the worldas something that it is not: happy, and this is relayed in the film as"art". As an educational film, the world could have been presented in amore accurate, two sided way.Having this said, there are parts of the film which deserve credit. Thesoundtrack at certain points is very fitting and the Love Parade scenewas by a long shot the best part of the film. It seems obvious that theeditor is very proud of his work in this film as he went for a veryhands on approach, but at its base the editing was very pretentious asit further enhances this fake view of the world.Life in a Day deserves a lot less credit than it receives, but it is afilm that will get the simple minded thinking. You will love this filmif you are: an environmentalist and/or on antidepressants. You willhate this film if you are a: rational/cynic.

pturner1010 (2012-05-12 18:34)

A day in the life of the planet Earth and the human race; this is the 24th of July, 2010 as recorded by anyone with a video camera.

Democracy. Power to the people. Digital technology. Video cameras, theinternet, editing software and music. Life in a Day is a unique,ambitious experiment. And boy does it work! A call went out fromdirector Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland)and executive producer Ridley Scott to the YouTube community. Captureyour life in a day. Anyone with a video camera and access to theinternet could enter and submit a video of what was happening in theirlife on the 24th July 2010. Cameras were even sent out to far-flungplaces to allow people who do not have access to these filmmaking toolsto contribute to the film. So is this a documentary, an experimentalfilm or a social action media production? Well it's all three and more.It's also a narrativised piece of thrilling, enjoyable andinspirational cinema that will leave audiences crying, smiling andfeeling blessed for their own lives and loved ones.The narrative is not forced; the film begins in the early hours of themorning and takes the audience through the day to midnight. Charactersoccasionally reappear throughout the day and others come and go in theblink of an eye. The ordinary, everyday lives of the people of theplanet are given an epic quality by the capturing of the full moon andmany time lapse shots of changing landscapes and in one brief sequencethe beauty of the northern lights. People rise early; people havestayed up all night drinking and one man howls and barks at the moon.The film then has many montages, people taking a morning leak, eatingbreakfast, taking their first steps out of bed in the morning. Thesoundtrack adds to the feel of the ordinary becoming extraordinary andthe editing emphasizes the universal ways that people go about theirdays. It might sound boring but it's not. The pace is swift withmoments of humour, sadness and plentiful details that will strike achord with many an audience member.People play themselves and I say 'play themselves' because there aremoments when the camera set ups draw attention to the constructednessof the scenarios. For example the montage of people waking up in themorning is rather let down by the people who have clearly set up thecamera on the tripod and then pretended to wake up in front of it. Muchmore 'real' feeling are the moments of people filming their partners asthey sleep and capturing true moments of awakening. There is also anotable emphasis on children which seems to tie in to a major theme ofthe film. Children are filmed by their parents (from sonograms tobabies to a young man's first shave) and in fact this is one of thefirst moments of the film when it settles on a character for more thana brief moment. The pride and love these parents feel shines throughwith the following of their children and cannot fail to put a smile onyour face.The task of editing 4500 hours down to just over 90 minutes must havebeen a monumental task and it's a wonder that the film has beenreleased in just under a year from the date that all the filming wasdone and uploaded. The editor, Joe Walker and the researchers must havesifted through countless hours of crap and should be applauded fortheir selections and for managing to also keep the film to a concise 90minutes. I imagine there are also numerous moments that were foughtover and eventually ended up unceremoniously dumped on the cutting roomfloor.Life in a Day is thought-provoking and life-affirming. Though nomessage is forced down the audiences throat, there are many ideaspresented here that should be thought about and discussed for hoursafter watching. The global origins of the footage, the variouslanguages spoken, the colours, sounds and sights of people of varyingcultures brought together in one film emphasizes the similaritiesbetween the people of the planet. The footage of rituals, customs, andcelebrations from around the world show that love and loss areuniversal, that family is universally important to all cultures.Juxtaposing an Afghan photographer with an American soldier's partneror a grinning Lamborghini owner with a shoe shining child suggests apolitical agenda but again, no message is forced. The viewer decideswhat to make of what they are seeing. There are some horrific moments;the tragic outcome of the German Love Parade, the killing of a cow, butthese are contextualized in a positive film that does not dwell on thesadness of life but focuses more on the joy.At just over 90 minutes the film does not outstay its welcome and Idare to suggest that a sequel would be worthwhile in a few years time.Life in a Day is a time capsule and a treasure trove of the ordinary.Through skillful editing, beautiful and emotive music and the desirefor the people of this planet to share themselves honestly and openlywith others, Life in a Day becomes more than a film, more than adocumentary and more than an experiment. The ordinary becomesextraordinary and the film becomes a gift, a statement and a powerfuldedication to love, family and unity. Watch it and embrace it.

Josh Anderson (2012-05-12 07:49)

Eye Opening Look into the Lives of People All over the World

The idea of taking footage from people all over the world is a novelapproach to a documentary. It creates an extremely candid and objectivelook into normal real life in our magnificent world. I have traveled alittle bit in my life, but a film like this still makes me feel like Istill haven't the slightest clue what billions of people live like inthe world. I want to watch this like 3 more times just to try and takeit all in. Though I'm sure the editors had a massive job cutting downthe submissions into this feature length, I still feel like watchingthis was like drinking from a fire hose. From eating and working toreligious practices and play times, from people's fears to people'sloves you see a remarkable representation of life on earth in one day.The downside to this film is that, because of its candidness, you seesome of the horrors of life like cancer, people being trampled to deathat a festival, a man who has just had open heart surgery. But it isbalanced by the beauty and adventure of life: birth, children at play,etc. At the end you will be left feeling like even if you are no onefamous, or you don't have much going on in life, you are part of thisplanet and your story is as significant as everyone else's. I have afeeling we will be seeing more documentaries and movies made like this,incorporating average people's footage.

rperry-17 (2012-05-09 12:36)

The last fifteen minutes....

I'm going to review this based on just the last fifteen minutes of thefilm. I have not seen the whole film yet, just the trailers and the lastfifteen minutes.Review:"My God. Could not be imagined, could not be written, could not havebeen foreseen.Astounding ending, but ultimately at peace with life. In a Day. MyGod."The film quality is way above what you might expect, as is the sound.This is not a collection of home video, but some astounding shots. Thestory itself is unwritten, just assembled, but incredibly well.I think it will take some time for this work to be recognised for whatit is.As will the vision of the people who came up with the idea. The resultis surely way beyond what they could ever have imagined.

Kevin Loigu (2012-05-09 00:22)

Life in a day,,,

First of all, this is my first review. Second of all, this documentaryis pure gold. How can you sum up life? All it's wonders and downsides?I think Kevin Macdonald and Ridley Scott and the whole team behindmaking this film did a great job. Everything you see in the film ispure. It's real. It's like if you watch this movie you can realize justhow large our world is. You cannot compare your everyday world to theworld other 7 billion humans are living in. Well at least I couldn't.Movies are my passion. And so are many other things. Being one of sevenbillion makes you think. Makes you analyze. Makes you feel. About life,about death. About myself and about you. About your smile. Aboutschool. About granny. About yesterday and about tomorrow. Life in a dayisn't just a documentary. It's a true story told by everyone in thisplanet. And the story goes on every single day until the story slowlyfades... Make your life worth living for. It's not likely to lastanother story.

bps3013 (2012-05-02 22:44)

Should have been 10 stars, had to deduct for Animal Death scene (SPOILER)

My wife and I were both absolutely engaged with this from the openingframes; funny, poignant, moving, this one was a winner and I couldn'twait to recommend it to friends and family.And then the cow slaughter scene hit and the feelgood express stoppedcold.I get the "day in the life of cultures all around the world" aspect ofthis project, but I have two questions: 1) Who in the FVCK sent in thatfootage in the first place, and what was the point? 2) Why did theproducers decide that it was important to include that footage in thefinished product? What could have and should have been required viewingfor everyone, of all ages, all over the planet was immediatelyrelegated to "Faces Of Death" status. Was the cow sick? Did it need tobe put down? Was it an animal experiment? Was it a statement aboutfactory farming? With no context by which to judge it, it simply hitsthe screen like a sledgehammer to the stomach. No warning. No rhyme orreason. If the producers were going for a "life and death" thing, thequick scene of the goat getting its throat cut should have sufficed.But to show a helpless cow trapped in a metal corral getting stunned inthe head (TWICE) and then getting stabbed in the throat AND THENwatching it bleed out was simply overkill in a bad way.If the significance of including such a graphic and depressing scene islost on me, I can accept that. I'm a realist. I don't live in a happyshiny bubble and I know that there are worse things than that thathappen on a daily basis everywhere. I eat meat. But what certainlyseemed like a celebration of human existence (its ups and downsincluded) was, in my humble opinion, tragically marred by this.

Golf India (2012-05-02 08:02)

Unremarkable YouTube mash

I watched this movie/documentary on the back of excellent reviews, andthe caliber of the director and producer. The subject matter wasinteresting, asking the web community to capture events happening intheir life or around them, on one day - thereby trying to captureglobally the essence of living. However it seems the scope of thesubject was too large, and difficult to condense and organise. As aresult there is no plot, and only a loose structure around the time ofthe day, i.e. rising of the sun, breakfast, lunch... with all sorts ofjumps to different subjects/locations/genres. That is OK if you want tosit through a random mish-mash of amateur clips, but I wondered whatwas the added value from 90 min of me surfing on YouTube. The answer iseditorial choice - it's all in the art of sampling, compiling andpresenting. To be fair, some parts were slick, but I wasn't sure aboutthe sudden jumps throughout, with no apparent link. Was the style meantto be impartial and objective / shocking, to drive a point home /partisan, representing a sanitised view of the world (big sponsorbacking through LG, who won't like a depressing story even if that wasthe reality of the user videos)? In the end, I felt the movie wastrying to be all things to everyone. It seems this explains thepopularity. But I failed to connect with the movie. Worse still, I feltreally nauseous from the jerky camera movements. I went to the cinemato be entertained, not to induce vomitting. If you must watch thisfilm, do it from a small screen. I wouldn't pay any money to watch itin the cinema - it's pointless.