MovieChat Forums > Sur le chemin de l'école (2013) Discussion > Am I the only one...

Am I the only one...

posted 9 years ago by gringa-carioquinha
2 replies | jump to latest

...who was kind of annoyed by the dialogue?

Don't get me wrong - this documentary is fantastic. Really puts things in perspective, makes you think and realize what other people in the world go through for an education. The scenery is gorgeous, and I adored it. But the dialogue felt so scripted, as if the director was telling the kids what to say half the time.

Certain aspects just felt kind of...fake. I guess in a story like this you have to squeeze a lot of interesting scenes into what seems like one day, to make it interesting but compact enough to be 2 hours or less. I get it...it just threw me off and took something away from it for me.

[–] pfate12 9 years ago

You're not the only one.

For me it was also the cinematography. The shots were so crisp, capturing close-ups, multiple angles, large panoramas... it felt like a big budget cinematic production at times. That they got so many wonderfully different angles of each of the journeys, combined with the music, took away from the realism and did make it feel staged. One moment the camera is right behind one of the kids, the next cut away we get the same kid from a distance with a vast landscape behind them. I kept thinking about how they were able to get those shots with some of those terrains, all the while the kids were left to travel on their feet.

[–] rdoyle29 8 years ago

Feel staged?

It was staged. Notice the kids run from the elephants, yet the crew were not the least bit concerned. Notice how they managed to both behind and ahead of the kids as they were running.

I'm not suggesting it was made up ... but it was entirely staged.