These days, with all the awards hype that defines the movie industry at this time of the year for a host of high-profile films, other titles that are earning theatrical play are in danger of being overlooked. These are not big-budget movies with big name stars. Far from it. Some are documentaries, and two of them have just earned theatrical play.
The first is ALGORITHMS. It is directed by Ian McDonald and it charts the lives of several young wannabe chess masters from Mumbai who are preparing for a competition. But there is a catch: These youngsters, who are approximately grade and middle school-age, are blind. At the outset, they are practicing for the Junior National Chess Championship for the Blind, from which two players will be selected to represent their country in a world competition.
In the film, the personalities and struggles of the players and their parents are detailed, but ultimately the question is: Can a grandmaster chess player ever emerge from the blind community? The answer is: Well, why not! As an adult champion explains: “Chess is a mind game. It is the only game in which a blind player can play at par with (the) sighted. If the infrastructure is provided to the blind, then he can surpass his sighted counterpart.”
ALGORITHMS is a compelling film that serves as a sobering reminder that individuals may be handicapped in one way or another, but their lives still have value. They have talents and abilities, and those talents and abilities must be nurtured.
An altogether different issue is examined in ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE, directed by Stuart Cameron and narrated by Sigourney Weaver. This documentary deals with an issue that is as current as today’s headlines: The plights of families who have become refugees. They are homeless. They are stateless. And officially, it is as if they do not exist.
The setting is the Burma-Thailand border where such individuals are eking by in Mae Sot, a district in western Thailand that is populated by Burmese migrants and refugees. Many-- or, more specifically, many thousand-- are children who have no education and no hope. Their parents work long hours producing goods in factories for puny wages and the question is: Are any of the goods we purchase here in the U.S. produced in such factories? Also explored in the film is the reality that big bucks can be earned through child trafficking and the fact that refugee children are potential victims.
However, given its title, it is not surprising that ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE does not wallow in despair. It centers on the efforts of a Burmese woman who is herself from a poor farm family and who has dedicated her life to bringing education to refugee children. She has established 50 schools for the youngsters, and ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE is the story of one of them.
On one level, this is a film that oozes hope. But is it a realistic hope? I honestly do not know. And cinematically-speaking, ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE comes off as more of a muzak-scored public service announcement than a documentary. Still, the film does deal with a very worthy subject. It is about the importance of education and the importance of having basic human rights, and it also asks: What does it mean to be stateless? What does it mean to be a refugee?
Despite its flaws, ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE puts a human face on the harsh realities faced by refugees: not just those depicted in the film but those who are stateless anywhere in the world.
Rob Edelman teaches film history at the University at Albany. He has written several books on film and television, and is an associate editor of Leonard Maltin’s Movie and Video Guide.
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