Bigger Than Us – Film review

“Bigger Than Us” is a 2021 documentary that follows Melati Wijsen an 18-year-old Indonesian activist, as she embarks on a journey around the globe. Wijsen caught the media’s attention at the age of 12 when she and her sister started a campaign to ban single-use plastic in Indonesia. Now years later, she is looking for the stories of similar activists who, at a young age, started to create positive change in their communities. First, we meet Memory, a Malawian girl who managed to raise the legal marriage age for young women from 15 to 18 in her country. Then Muhammad, a Syrian refugee living in Lebanon who helped build a school for himself and other refugee children when the government wouldn’t step in. Next Rene, a Brazilian teenager who created a local newspaper within the favelas to report from the perspective of an insider. Xiuhtezcatl, a native American youth living in Colorado and fighting against the fracking phenomenon that’s damaging primarily minority communities. Mary, a British woman living in Greece, who after visiting the country, decided to stay and help save refugees arriving by boat and seeking asylum in Europe. And Winnie, a Ugandan woman who encourages other women to take up farming as a way to gain independence.

These stories are not only inspiring, but they also remind us that it doesn’t take a politician or someone with great influence to change the world for the better. However, on a more pessimistic note, the film does incite some concern for the general inaction and indifference towards environmental and social issues. One can’t help but to feel like we do too little to make this world a better place and most people (myself included) are too preoccupied with menial everyday tasks that we rarely stop and ask ourselves if what we are doing with our actions is meaningful, worthwhile, and capable of lifting humanity into something better.

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It is heartbreaking to see that it had to take children in desperate situations to start these campaigns instead of those with the resources and power to do so. Even here at HSG where most people are well informed and aware of subjects like Climate Change, gender and income inequality, genocide and the horrors of war, but aren’t directly confronted with these realities, tend to more often than not find excuses to not get involved and mobilize our resources for such a cause.

The response: “What impact could I, as a single individual, have?” is sometimes reasonable but it is stories like these which prove that even minor actors can make an impact in the greater scheme of things. So, one can conclude that taking action is worth it, even if sometimes the only result it has is to put our minds at ease.

Despite the film’s attempt to motivate us to take action, it could have done so in a better. Each story of the different activists could have been further developed, perhaps the documentary could have been made into a miniseries or something similar. Furthermore, like many documentaries on controversial social, political, and environmental topics, it falls into the cliché of providing the viewer with an optimistic outlook that leaves them satisfied. This might not have been the most effective way to incite change since it comes off as an informative film about the numerous positive projects young people have been able to create. Perhaps, more shocking images and facts would have provoked more outrage and therefore the movie would have gained more popularity at the box office.

Overall, the message was still clear: Time is scarce, the challenges are great and therefore we urgently need to make a change. The film repeatedly underlines the fact that it is our generation who will suffer the most by the inaction to tackle these problems. Thus, it is only fitting that they provide young people as examples of drivers of change.

If you want to get an impression of the film “Bigger Than Us” yourself, you can watch it on Wednesday 27.10.2021 at 8.30 pm in the Kinok in St.Gallen.