Life in a Day (2011)

One of my all time favorites.

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Great idea, i was hoping to see great variety since it supposed to be 192 countries, but it was 70% white people being whatever. and too many Americans. if i wanted to see Americans i would see the rest of netflix.honestly disappointed!!A Vida em um Dia (2011) "Life in a Day" (original title) PG-13 | 95 min | Documentary, Drama | 20 April 2012 (Brazil) 7,7 Your rating: 2/10 Ratings: 7,7/10 from 12.714 users Metascore: 58/100 Reviews: 54 user | 92 critic | 18 from Metacritic.com A documentary shot by film-makers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the twenty-fourth of July, 2010.Directors: Kevin Macdonald, Hiroaki Aikawa, 27 more credits » Stars: Hiroaki Aikawa, Cindy Baer, Teagan Bentley | See full cast and crew »

I should start by saying that I heard about this project at the time is was being, and I personally attempted to take part myself filming the day in question, but I made the mistake of deleting the footage from my iPod, but I will be honest, I don't think my footage would have been interesting enough to fit in the finished film I saw, LOL. From director Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland) and executive producers Sir Ridley Scott (Thelma and Louise, Black Hawk Down) and Tony Scott (In Her Shoes, The Taking of Pelham 123), a project was launched on worldwide video sharing website YouTube for people around the world to film themselves for one day, the same day - 24th July 2010, explaining the life that they live and showing us what they get up to, it could be seen as a film version of a time capsule. Over 80,000 videos were submitted to the website, with over 4500 hours of footage, from 192 countries, and all of this was edited down, from the most watched, most enlightening and most interesting moments in the lives of the people who participated to create this highly interesting documentary about what it means to be human in the world today. Footage includes the mundane to the monumental from the various people, including getting out of bed, breakfast time, getting dressed, going to work, families and children playing together, wedding vows being renewed and marriages, death mentions, gay people coming out, people visiting people, days out like a theme park and watching fireworks, or just simply showing the world that you existed. All participants could do whatever they wanted in their video, but there were also three questions for them to answer so that it was even more personal, these being: What's in your pocket? What do you love? and What do you fear?, and these obviously add to the people seen showing their joy and sadness and more illuminating glimpses of human experience. With every type of person, from every walk of life in terms of wealth and poverty, from almost everywhere around the world, and many interesting sights to see, this is most interesting watch for anyone, the music by Harry Gregson-Williams and Matthew Herbert goes well with most of the material, and it is edited together well from beginning to end so that the stories flow at good pace, a most watchable documentary. Very good!

I watched the film in school as a Case Study for my NMT exam.First Impressions – It was a very different film to others that I have seen, with no clear narrative and the quality of the footage is not as good as 'Hollywood' films. However, something that was positive about the film that was different to others is there are no actors, nothing is set up.Good Points – It is a new way of making films, getting 75% of clips from YouTube 'User generated content' and the actual idea of the film, how 1000's of people would film themselves and their lives on one particular day, to get a look inside how the world looks like from different points of view and not just being Britain's or Americans which are common in films.Bad Points – The quality of the clips are not very good, but you get used to it after a couple of minutes and each clip uses different camera shots and quality, which is good as it keeps it interesting, but as a whole, and film, it should be consistent. Each clip is too short to get attached or feel emotions to, whereas another film like 'Marley & Me', you get half an hour to learn about the characters which gets you attached to them. Also, the film is quite boring at times, with scenes being too long (not being very interesting), or too short in some cases.Overall, it is a film only to be watched as a last resort, but it does provide us with a very interesting view of the world on one day and acts as a time capsule for future generations.

A mish mashy melange was my first reaction on watching this. Then i watched it again and could see more coherence in it.It's structured around all the ordinary small stuff we have to do to get through the every day: waking up, washing, brushing teeth, shaving, making breakfast, lunch and so on.And then there's the bigger life-events like coping with illness, getting married, having babies.Questions are asked like, "What's in your pocket?" or "What do you love/fear? A lonely guy loves his cat… another guy loves his fridge.. another guy fears his hair falling out… a woman fears "not being a mummy"… and so on..At times the editing is very fast: periodic montage sequences whizz by a conveyor belt of micro images like a Planet Earth ad break.But then there are several personal pieces that follow individual situations. I liked these slower stories better, such as The post-graduate returning to Essex to catch up with his "old man" dad, both sat in the car, sharing a burger.The gay guy coming out to grandma on the phone ("I love you too" he's saying to her) And the sad scenarios: of the father lighting incense at shrine of dead wife – and the little sons perfunctory remembrance of his mother; or the "Family project" of mother dying of cancer, trying to help her anxious young son make sense of it; or the thankful – tearful – Aussie in hospital after major heart surgery "I'll be out there again, doing crazy things, and enjoying life" he says. But you sense he probably won't.There's smiley bits too, like the Peruvian shoeshine boy; the rude wedding vows read by the English vicar.And some nasty bits, like the slaughter of cow, its throat being slashed into to let blood – and there's a rapidly cut together montage of scenes of violence and fighting – deliberately rushed through so as not to dwell too long. The shoplifting Russian/Slav is a bit dismaying too (firstly, that he's filmed getting away with it; secondly that the clip gets sent to be included in the film; and thirdly – that it is included!) Throughout, is the continual narrative thread of a Korean cycling around the world for the last 9 years – feeling homesick for Korean flies.Come the afternoon outdoor pursuits – like skydiving out of planes – and Life in a Day has got to feel exhausting.So much packed in, so much to pack in. I think a million sub-editors were needed to prune the 4500 hours of submitted footage into a mere 90 minutes – just a blink of the Earths eye really.To begin with i was wanting not to like it, but come the end i was won over. Out of all this mashed up diffuseness something cogent got produced. Although I wonder how much actual directing input Kevin MacDonald did to it. It looks more like a cut and paste collaboration, the chopped up product of countless hours of endless editing – rather than something that's been singularly created.Question is, would selective clicking on any YouTube vids on any day of the year produce the same result? No, cus this is more of a polished product. But watching a load of randomised clips would probably seem as arbitrary as this film feels. And the effect would feel similar: trawling in too much information just makes the net of your attention go saggy.I might watch this again one day (Unless they come up with another life in another day next year) At the end – 2 minutes before midnight – there's a girl in a car bemoaning the fact that "I spent the whole day waiting for something great to happen….all day long nothing really happened…i want people to know that i'm here…. i don't want to cease to exist" "I don't want to cease to exist". As long as you're seen on YouTube, you can pretend you don't. If you get my drift.