This is an interesting documentary on two refugees in London, their link was a memento, a keepsake of their former lives that gives them hope to hold on through their exile.
The 22.1 min documentary "memento", presented by Vera Frankl told capitvating accounts of these two lives. It started with melancholic background music that accompanied soundbytes of these two refugees talking about their precious objects.
The documentary started off smoothly, introducing Fungayi, a Zimbabwean political activist and musian, who goes every saturday to protest against his countrie's regime infront of the Zimbawean embassy in London. A natsound of people singing and playing african tunes is heard, which is very lively and colorful.
Then a long interview was conducted with Funagyi, which was captivating because of his voice. Although it was long, Fungayi's storytelling technique made the story flow easily.
Then introducing the next subject, there was an awkward transition in the middle, and then Caty from Uganda was introduced, whose only remains of her former life is a picture of her two daughters that she hasn't seen in a long while. Here the documentary started to drag on. It felt too long and I lost concentartaion several times, her story was nonetheless very interesting and moving. Her voice trembled a bit in the middle, which gave life and images to the sound.
I would suggest that the documentary should be divided in two parts. I know, that the whole documentary was a part two of another one, but I would've suggested that they made several documentaries, sort of like a series.
Other than the length, I think it lacked natsound. It started off beautifully, with music and natsounds but throughout the end, there was only interview, which is one of the reasons I felt that it dragged too much.
Overall, it was very good. Descriptive and poignant, with lots of different anecdotes that gave the subjects a face and a soul.
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