Analysis of a Documentary Relevant to our Project

 

Simple As Water  

 

‘Simple As Water’ is a 1 hour 37-minute observational documentary which follows five refugees who had to flee war zones for their safety. The film follows Yasmin, a mother of four living in a tent in the port of Athens; Samra, a widow on the Turkey-Syria border grappling with the decision to leave her children in an orphanage in hopes of giving them a better life; 22-year-old Omar, who has taken on the role of a parent for his younger brother Abed in Pennsylvania; Diaa, who has remained in Syria while tirelessly searching for her "disappeared" son; and Safwan, Yasmin's husband, who lives in temporary housing in Germany and yearns to be reunited with his children (Mylan, 2021).  

 

I chose to watch this documentary as it covered the humanitarian aspects and consequences of war which is what we aim to explore through our documentary. When discussing and growing our idea we were most interested in how families have had to flee their homes to find safety in the UK and the selflessness of the people providing aid and homes to these families. Some of these ideas are explored in ‘Simple as Water’. The documentary is also filmed in a ‘fly on the wall style’ which is a style we discussed using. I think it was an interesting style to use for such a long documentary as it became boring quickly however, it did keep the experiences portrayed authentic. I don’t think a fly on the wall style will be used in out documentary as it is not engaging as we want it to be. I think we can authentically portray individual stories while using interviews.  

 

However, for this documentary I think they used this style to symbolise the language barriers between the refugees and the natives of the country they have fled to. When we were exploring Yasmin’s story, we saw her and a translator speaking to a person of authority discussing visas and visa applications. This is extremely relevant to our documentary as the visa process to get refugees over to the UK from Ukraine is long and difficult for host families to fill out and acquire while also having to deal with the language barrier between Ukrainians who cannot speak English or vice versa.  

 

I would describe the visual style of the documentary as simple as it adopts a ‘fly on the wall’ style. However, this style demands a lot of choices in the production and editing phase. It involves more than recording what is there (Henrik, 2006).  

 

Visually the documentary uses b-roll and general views which depict children playing and being children, this is interesting as the children have been through so many tough times but still can be children. However, this imagery pulls on the heart strings because it shows children’s naivety and how easily they can forget how bad the world is which adults wish they could do. Family photos/videos from life before the war when families were still together are also commonly featured. This connotes how different their lives have become since fleeing and their families were torn apart. This makes the audience sympathise with the refugees and imagine how they would feel being torn away from their families. The documentary also uses close ups to creative a greater emotional connection and intimacy between the viewer and the participant. This will make the viewer feel physically close to the subject which works to eliminate the distance created by the language barrier.  

 

 

 

 

 

References 

 

Mylan, M. “Simple as Water.” IMDb, 16 Nov. 2021, www.imdb.com/title/tt8923510/. Accessed 2 May 2022. 

Henrik, J. Defining Documentary Film. 2006.