Raw Material (Hristos Karakepelis, 2011): Greece

Reviewed by Truman Kewley. Viewed at Santa Barbara International Film Festival

The film Raw Material was very interesting visually and very interesting to hear the dialog from these people.  This film kept my attention the entire time and had me thinking I take way to much for granted.  This film really opens your eyes to the life style any family’s are forced to live.  The documentary film Raw Material was a very interesting inside look at a life style most people especially Americans have never seen before.  The humble children and family’s really stand out in this incredible documentation of human life in the shadows.

I watched the film Raw Material at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.  The films director did and amazing job at getting the family’s comfortable with him and the cameras and they really brought him into there lifes seem by many on the streets every day but never really looked into.  The subjects in this documentary were very real and very open.  The people in the film seemed to look at the director, Hristos Karakepelis, as a member of the family or a helper on there journey to survive.

The documentary film Raw Material followed the life’s and family’s of Roma illegal immigrants as they struggle to survive.  There only means of income is from collecting different types of metals and selling them at scrap yards.  The scrap yards are all corrupt and decide how much something weighs and how much to give for it just by look.  The family’s can not complain to the scrap yard because they fear if they do the scrap yard workers will stop buying from them and they will have no means of making money to survive.  One thing about all the family’s is how close they are.  All the members of each family seem much much closer with each other than any American culture.  Witch makes you think who is truely living life correctly.

The most significant aspect of the film Raw Material in my opinion is the attitudes of the children in these family’s.  The children love there life and there family.  Not knowing anything different there entire lives, the children find joy in things most other children would consider hard labor or tough.  The children in the film say they do not want to be like the other kids they want to be with there family doing what there family does not like anyone else.  The film has almost a scary element to it, just because of how real it is.

I would recommend everyone to see this film to see how other people are living and enjoying life.  Even living in a lower class household we take advantage of aspects that are never even an option to other family’s and cultures.