Das Leben auf Erden

An observational treatise on the contrast in existence of a village in Mali versus Paris in a way and a comment on the failure of African governments to care for its citizens. slice of movie La vie sur terre captures the last day of the last century in the rustic community of Sokolo. Documentary style observations with poetic narration and voice overs, it paints a delicate existence that may or not be hopeless. Beautifully shot on high def video but a bit slight in point of view, its slim running time makes a convenient mood piece. A promising work that exposes the talent of the director. Some might criticize it as an NGO movie or CNN Africa but its not really harsh but does express the director's opinion that hope is leaving Africa. I respectfully disagree.

depicting a small rural village in Mali, Africa, it shows how an agrarian society copes with the slow introduction of technology into their millennia-old society. The battery-operated transistor radio is still the prefered tool for getting information and entertainment (nice scene of man riding a bicycle with a bulky radio wrapped around his chest). The telephone is a new tool, and many people are uncomfortable to talking to someone without actually visually seeing the other party, thus creating some interesting scenes such as someone picking up the receiver but not actually answering and talking until the caller fully identifies himself and explains the purpose of the communication. The helper here is the post office employee that helps callers on the social protocol of how to make phone calls and how to communicate with the reticent receiving-end people. Visually filmed in a mud-brick village, showing small shops, impromptu businesses on the mud flats, the camera moved smartly from angle to angle to show the 360 degree nature of a very interwined society, where everyone knows everyone else, and where everyone else is visually positioned. One technique used in changing location context is showing a barber and his client, then zooming into the mirror, a reflected image is seen in the mirror of a bicyclist, and the camera then rotates to see the real bicyclist, leading to another context. The pace is slow, just as life in rural Mali can be interpreted to be slow by a person accustomed to a faster paced society. Reminded me of some of the black and white movies made in India in the 50s and 60s depicting rural life.

The story of a man celebrating the Y2K in the small African village of Sokolo. The normal way of life is still going by it's s-l-o-w pace in Sokolo, and no one takes notice of the new worldwide celebrations. There are a lot of beautiful images in this film, but there really is no story to bind them together. And 61 minutes of nothing but beautiful images becomes kind of boring.

It Is life on earth. Straddling different worlds as the director does, made me realise how very schizophrenic our lives sometimes are. Some people thought the pace of the film too slow, but coming from a place just like Sokolo, I found it quite a moving tribute to many Africans who live the western, urban myth and the rural existence. It's imagery was convincing, poetic and real to me. A visual tapestry of sheer beauty.

I would disagree with anyone that thought this film is not held together by anything...thematic connections can be just as strong (and certainly more meaningful than) as those of a plot driven film. In this film the western hype surrounding the millenium is used as a contrast to the static of west africa. on the brink of the 21c it is sobering (but also joyful in its vitality) to see the reality of most of the worlds population. As we begin to feel we have discovered so much and advanced so far it is then that mans work really begins to improve social systems...to politically empower on the micro level... it is all there in the radio station, the poor farmer waiting for the government man to come and do something about the birds that eat the wheat in the fields but which they are not allowed to kill, the parade of people using the postoffice phone all rendered equal (including the military) by the fact that no one can be contacted by phone.... this all may sound very heavy but it is actually very light, full of mirth and colour.