“Human Flow begins with an image of the open sea — vast, neutral, almost calming. Into the frame slips a handful of overloaded zodiacs, bright orange life jackets singling out the children among the passengers who have spent days adrift. As the boats land on the beach, the cool neutrality of the image shifts to hectic chaos — feet grinding on the pebbly shore, orders being barked, weeping. The camera cuts to a close-up of a young man drawing anxiously on a cigarette. He's been fleeing for weeks, from Iraq, to wind up here, on a beach in Greece, with no idea what happens next.
“Human Flow toggles back and forth between the enormity of an unforgiving planet — scenes shot with drones show vast processions of refugees trickling across dusty landscapes, or tent cities that stretch beyond view — to always comes back to earth, and hard. In finding his balance, director Ai Weiwei has made something beautiful: Human Flow is neither indulgent nor pedantic, but clear-eyed in its view of the enormity of the crisis.” - Toronto Star
"It is the most strikingly beautiful and vividly moving account of international borders and those fated to cross them that has ever been recorded." - Minneapolis Star Tribune