This past week I subscribed to Netflix. Yeah, I know I am a little behind the times but watching movies and TV shows would only make me procrastinate more than I already do. As a friend was showing me how to work it and telling me all the benefits of it, I began to get frustrated and overwhelmed. It was not until I browsed through the documentary section and chose a film that I was satisfied with my subscription. The movie I chose was 'Life in a Day'. The movie is a compliation of thousands of YouTube videos sent in on the same day, July 24th, 2010. 

I was enthralled when watching it. Seeing people's actions of making breakfast, brushing their teeth, and going to work. It was intriguing to see how most everybody in the world has such a similar story. At the same time, I was most intrigued by the juxtaposition of cultures. One clip would show an American man driving his Lamborghini to the store and the next would be a shot of an Indian man on a rickshaw dodging cows.   I enjoyed the movie so much that, as always when I am interested in something, I went straight to Wikipedia. While reading the section "Themes and Content", I was startled by what one of the producers had said. Director Kevin MacDonald saw the movie as a "metaphor of the experience of being on the Internet...clicking from one place to another, in this almost random way...following our own thoughts, following narrative and thematic paths." 

What? During my viewing I was captivated by the people and the actions they were doing. I was intrigued by the thought that the millions of others around me are not as different as I think. I was enticed by the display of the human condition. The comment made by the 'author' of the movie, the director, got me upset because I didn't agree with him. But alas, I remembered Roland Barthes. Barthes argues that the author doesn't seem to matter at all, and the analysis of the work can be done without any knowledge of the author and his or her intents on writing the work. 

I agree with Barthes. MacDonald did direct this film, but this film was a compilation of thousands of authors. There is no single author of this film. To understand this movie, one needs to understand the human life. We all are our own authors to our own lives, and MacDonald and his producers strung together bits and pieces of lives around the world. Since there are so many contributors to this piece of work, I would argue that it is not important to know the authorship, since all of us have a little authorship over it. We all are alive and could connect with this movie in one way or another through work, family, love, birth, and death. 

Click below to watch the film.
http://www.youtube.com/movie?v=JaFVr_cJJIY&ob=av1n&feature=mv_sr