A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I don't know who this Ai Wei Wei is, but he needs to learn to chill out. Focus more on capturing the story instead of trying to get a glimpse of limelight through the misfortune of others. It was really confusing because there are some beautiful shots in the film, the cinematography was good. But randomly you would just see this fat old asian guys face randomly appear throughout the film. I would've minded it if the dude was good looking, but in this case I was very startled. Not a good face to look at. Scores were good though +

No commentary and no background but lots of shots of Ai Wei Wei looking for a spot in the limelight of other people's sad escapes from poverty, war, starvation and desperation. If every cent of profit is put back into helping or offering hope, then I might return to this sad tale.

The current global refugee crisis is the focus of this German documentary as the viewer witnesses the lives of migrants in motion, stuck in places they didn't expect to be, and their overall despair. The areas of migration include the Middle East, central Africa, and Myanmar.Director Ai Weiwei does a very skillful job in letting the camera do the work to make the most profound statements as silently as possible. This includes superb aerial shots of massive crowds struggling in strange surroundings. Luckily, it's not all misery in some cases such as children who continue to play - oblivious to their situation; and even a few adults finding optimism.At two and a third hours, the film is overly long despite its noble efforts in concentrating on as many migrations and refugee camps as possible. It might have reduced some of these sequences and spent extra time on the difficulties some migrants have had fitting into their new countries outside of refugee camps. Similarly, more time could have been spent on the history of migration though that of World War II was mentioned.Similar documentaries that take on the world's worst ills finish with at least a smidgen of hope without seeming naïve. Sadly, "Human Flow" cannot as the populations of refugees continue to accelerate. But the film at least succeeds in giving the viewer a human look at what is presently a living hell for many. The only thing that is worse is what not could be filmed safely: the living hell the refugees left behind.

I saw this today after having heard Ai Weiwei speak a few weeks ago at the Cooper Union about this film and his NYC project of fence sculptures around the city.The film documents the plight of global displacement of humans due to unprecedented civil strife and climate disaster - displacing more people than WW2.It was a bit long but, in fact, that was probably a strategy to mirror the enormity of the problem.Not moralising, more show than tell, I respect this method of documentary making.Thank you.