312. Life In A Day

Friday night and a welcome double header at Derby Quad.
Despite having an unlimited pass at Nottingham Cineworld and loving the seats at Derby's Showcase De Lux, Quad is where I feel most at home.
I've been involved with the cinema since it opened and a few times have introduced movies to audiences here. It's where East Midlands Today filmed me back in February. And it's the only cinema where the staff know who I am (at least some of them).
My evening entertainment began with Kevin Macdonald's Life In A Day, which boasts Ridley and Tony Scott as executive producers.
Essentially, people from 192 countries across the world sent 4,200 hours of film to YouTube. The material was gleaned from just one day - July 24, 2010.
It is, therefore, intended as a snapshot of what ordinary folk were doing in very different circumstances across the planet.
We see some answer specific questions like, what do you love and what do you fear.
These are mingled in with general footage.
So, we see people waking, brushing teeth, eating breakfast etc etc etc.
I was catching up with Life In A Day because we were on holiday when it was released but was looking forward to it because of the glut of positive reviews.
However, while accepting that it is a very clever concept, I didn't find it as enlightening as others have done.
It sets out to be a brief glimpse into people's lives and does exactly what it says on the tin.
Thus, I didn't really learn an awful lot about lives in other parts of the world.
Yes, the differences in culture are laid out clearly but did I really need to see an animal shot and then having its throat cut to know that?
I've learned far more about the cultural divides by documentaries which are much less superficial.
Some say it's uplifting but one of the major events of July 24, 2010 was the trampling to death of 18 people at a festival in Germany.
We see graphic footage and it left me rather downbeat.
Overall it was interesting rather than riveting. In fact, too much of the cute footage made me think of You've Been Framed to make me think it was a cinema classic.
It was certainly worth watching because it was experimental but as a movie experience I can only give it 5.5/10