Culture

Culture

The films Life in a Day and Reassemblage are real life documentaries which try to capture a moment in the human life on camera. The producers of both films try to present original works as much as possible by denying filmmaker to define the content of the scenes through narrations. Documentaries are meant to show the world on the culture of other people therefore, they must be as original as possible so as to portray an accurate picture. Nevertheless, despite the same genre of cinematographic works and the similar focus on the depiction of the cultures of people around the world and the manner in which they were shot, the films are rather different in terms of the setting as well as the time of the shooting.
Besides belonging to the genre of documentary, both films focus on depicting different cultures of people around the world. They try as much as possible not to interfere with the subject so that the stories would come out as original and authentic in their basic form with minimal intervention on the side of the creating team. In Reassemblage, Trinh decides not to speak about the subject but just to speak nearby the subject, which consequently shows how determined she was not to interfere with the content of the documentary. What is beneficial in this approach is that this strategy allows the viewers to judge by their own bases and not on the perspective of the narrator in telling the story. Most of the documentary is just pictures of the Senegalese women with sounds of drum beats in the background. This lets the viewers see for themselves the realities of life in the Senegalese people and intrinsically judge for themselves. In Life in a Day, the interference of the director is also not highly identifiable as far as the film comprises of video clips selected from 80,000 clips which were submitted to YouTube after a request was made for people to capture a moment of their day during the day of 24th July 2010. Similarly, in the Life in a Day, the filmmaker also does not narrate through the documentary but let’s the viewer’s discern for themselves and to draw their own conclusions from the images they are able to see on the screen. Employing such a technique, both artists engage the viewers into the process of observing and provide them with a chance to make up their mind regarding the topic.

Another similarity concerning the nature of the movies under discussion is the fact that the audience was willing to be documented. In Life in a Day, the subjects sent the videos themselves to YouTube so that Macdonald and his team sampled the videos and made the documentary. As for the Reassemblage, while the team was trying to record women in secrecy so as to get an original video, the women in one scene noticed that they are being filmed, but they still invited Trinh and her crew to continue filming them. Despite these similarities, the documentaries have differences that range from the setting, to the time of the shooting. As a result, the movies have developed rather different perspectives on how people view things and perceive other cultures. Veritably, Macdonald was able to show that despite our diversity, we are not that different from each other. Similarly, Trinh managed to deliver the message that we should not judge others just for being not similar to them.

What the two films also seem to share in common can be claimed the reinforcing of the western cultures and being biased on the African cultures according to the article by Hurston’s “Outside in Inside Out”. Both films portray Africa as a dull, miserable place where the people live in outward suffering. While the western countries seem to be happy even though some are sick, there is still hope for them since they have good systems in place. The weakness of the viewers is that they accept what is shown in the documentaries without putting themselves on the other side of the story. This proves that making a documentary is challenging since capturing the culture of a community on film is complex and cagey. For example, Hurston argues in the article “Outside in Inside Out” that in order to “seek to reveal one society to another” one needs “to grasp the native’s point of view” (Hurston, 65). This idea is to a certain extent developed by Trinh who made an attempt to spend substantial amount of time within the depicted in the movie culture. From this point of view, it is impossible to understand other cultures simply by experiencing them for a short time. Nevertheless, the movie Life in a Day manages to provide an interesting insight into the topic and to contribute to the understanding of differences.
Considering the details, the settings of the two films differ in terms of where they were shot and the time the shooting was made. In the case of Reassemblage, the setting is in a rural place in the country of Senegal in the year 1983, just two decades after the country got independence. The narrator is saddened by the fact that a country this young is already judged as an underdeveloped country despite the fact that it is only twenty years old. In Life in a Day, the documentary captures the people’s ways of life from all over the world showing their diversity rather than concentration on the representatives of a single culture. Distinctively, the video does not target an individual community like in Reassemblage but focuses instead on the global community.
The time taken to shoot the documentaries also differs. Trinh affirms in her opinion that, in order to correctly capture the culture of an individual community, one needs to stay with them for a particular time so as to understand them. This documentary focuses on the women of a single community in Senegal, the work they have to do and the experiences they have undergone throughout their lives. Thus, the shooting was performed during a long period of time. In contrast, in Life in a Day, the documentary focuses on the events of a single day from midnight to midnight. It shows activities from different parts of the world beginning from the time they wake up, how they prepare to go to work, different meals that people eat and the experiences different people have. The documentary also uses juxtaposition to create a relationship between the scenes and the time of day they occurred, which is also a distinctive feature of the film. Through such an approach, the documentary is focused on showing the diversity of people from all over the world and the way they spend their time within their localities.
Another aspect that also differentiates the two films is the major theme depicted by the two directors. The theme in Life in a Day presents a positive mood as people are seen to be happy with life within their regions. That is, whether a country is developed or underdeveloped, the video showed a positive attitude in most parts of the documentary. In Reassemble, the mood of the documentary is calm with the women carrying out their business as usual. There are, however, scenes where the subjects show a little excitement when they realize that they are being documented. The drum beats behind the scene creates a formal atmosphere in the sense that something interesting is happening within the community.
Some of the critiques argue that filming documentaries in the ways in which the two movies were shot is a deviation from the actual documentary. Trinh strives to convince the viewers not to create a preconception towards the community stating that after only twenty years of independence with the 20 Billion people, the country is already termed as underdeveloped, and she did what she could to promote this idea. The subjects usually change their normal behavior and act in a way that they would look good or sympathetic to the viewers. In the case of Life in a Day, most of the scenes in the video presents a positive attitude which is not usually the case in the normal situation. Critiques maintain that at the end of the day, Life in a Day was like an extended commercial for

YouTube where the message being passed was too common and known. Nevertheless, this documentary is crucial and useful in terms of revealing the diversity and showing the extent to which cultures may differ while it is still necessary to respect those differences.
In conclusion, depicting the cultures of other people is not an easy task due to a range of reasons. While experiencing cultures is impossible in a film or a short video, it is crucial to admit that directors of both Reassemblage and Life in a Day have managed to reveal the cultural peculiarities of the filmed people. Despite the differences in the setting and the approach to shooting the films, the directors managed to deliver the similar ideas concerning the need to respect other cultures and not to be biased towards other cultures.
compare and contrast two of the documentaries screened this term through the lens of an important shared theme, idea, or topic.