Quaranta
Giorni (Forty Days) Movie Review:
Two Italian
families are part of an exchange scheme where orphan kids
are taken from their homes in the Chernobyl area and placed
with families for 40 days. We follow the families and the
kids through this time, always questioning whether this
is right or wrong.
Thankfully
it’s not a simple early evening feel good about yourself
documentary, instead making the viewer have to think and
make up their own judgements about the benefits or not of
the scheme.
And
therein lies the real meat of the film. Is this trip of
any benefit to the kids? They have no one at home, or their
parents have severe problems. They are ripped from their
orphanage and placed in a strange country where even communicating
to the host family is going to be nigh on impossible, as
they don’t even speak Russian.
It really does question the motives of the people fostering,
are they doing it for their own western interests? Is it
self-aggrandizement? Do they really care about the kids?
Do they think that people in the western world are better
than these abandoned kids?
The
film really hits home at the end when the trip adviser from
Russia is asked what her thoughts are - “they don’t
need saviours, to be friends is ok.” And if that’s
the message of this 58min documentary then I, for one, can
accept that.
Quaranta Giorni is accompanied by a 23 minute near silent
documentary that shows a rural Belarus community. Although
there is negligible dialogue it does show in stark relief
how some parts of the world still exist in a near middle
ages fashion.
Gary
Gray
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