There are a lot of ways to watch a movie; the perceptive can
vary from beginning to end. After watching a movie called: “Refugee: The
Eritrean Exodus”, I could realize how powerful media and images in general can
be and how they can influence people’s minds. The Film was about an American traveler (Chris Cotter), who realized he wanted to have a new adventure by
doing something special. He decided to learn more about Eritrea and its
refugees by following the path of them towards refugee camps in Ethiopia and then eventually Israel.
I found myself struggling to get an opinion or better say a
way to explain, why this person produced this film and what his purpose was. As
he said, his goal was to give a voice to Eritrean refugees and motivate people
to help them. He showed a lot of violent stories of people being trafficked,
smuggled and tortured, women being raped and children living under very
difficult circumstances. These stories connected with the made up scenes, he
put in this film were emotionally tough. Some of the Eritrean people being
interviewed were frustrated and angry. They refused to tell him their stories,
because as they said: it wouldn’t make any difference, no one did something to help them before. On the other hand, there were some other interviewers, who
were thanking him, because no one would let them tell their story, especially
in Eritrea.
The film ended with Chris going back home in Philadelphia,
greeting his dog and sitting at his comfortable couch. So as I see it, on the
one hand he tried to do something to help the Eritrean refugees in need, but
after all he returned back to his comfortable home. Chris Cotter had a vision and tried to put it
into words and actions. Even though the film had a “Hollywood-style” and showed
a western figure going to Africa to learn more about Eritrea, it was a way to
inform people. It was maybe not the best way, but at least he tried. I could
also watch the way he evolves during the film and facing this trip not as a fun
adventure anymore, but as a way to help refugees.
This is my positive way to watch this film.
On the other hand I was wondering: is this what these people
need, an American musician trying to live a new “adventure” with a camera, a
producer with made up brutal scenes? Can anyone even imagine what these people
have been through and put it into a scene?
What irritated me the most was the song he chose to end the
film with. The song is called “Home” and it repeats the phrase “What is home?”.
I would like to know, why he chose this song. By the end of the film, he came
back home. He went back to his normal life and even though he had all these
experiences and met all these people in Ethiopia, he had the chance to go back to his safe life. Eritrean refugees have to struggle for years and maybe never get a place
which they can call home. They don’t feel like Eritrea is their home, because of the
government’s situation. They can either call Ethiopia home, because the camps
they live in, are supposed to be something temporary, so they stay there and they
wait for someone to come and help them. These few months turn into years of
waiting. This may be also the reason why they get frustrated when a “white” guy
asks them to tell him their story for maybe the 10th time and they
know nothing will change. And this is my pessimistic way of watching the film.
But yet again, at least he did something…
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