Lift: Short Film on Everyday People

[mouser]

Many of us spend our days going through life on rails, avoiding strangers.. Films like these make you appreciate how special it can be to step off the track and make a connection with someone you don't know for no other reason than to put a ripple in the waters and share a human moment.

from http://www.cynical-c.com/

[IainB]

Now that's depressing.

[cranioscopical]

Now that's depressing.

-IainB (March 03, 2011, 07:54 AM)

Not wholly uplifting.

[mouser]

I didn't find it depressing.  Here's my take: There is a lot of sadness and loneliness in this world.  This video shows some of that.

But it also shows how much even just a single act of stepping through that imaginary forcefield that we all have that isolates each of us from one another, can make an impact on someone who is craving some connection with their fellow human beings.  I think sometimes the smallest anonymous gesture of just reaching out to talk to someone can have a real and lasting impact on their life.

There are more purely positive uplifting examples of this, most notably the amazing Free Hugs video, which is more than likely to make you cry.  But this one still moves me.. to see people open up and respond to someone who is willing to non-judgmentally listen to them, and see how it's a meaningful event for them.

[IainB]

@mouser:

"There is a lot of sadness and loneliness in this world.  This video shows some of that. ... to see people open up and respond to someone who is willing to non-judgmentally listen to them, and see how it's a meaningful event for them."

Yes, exactly, and that's just one aspect of what seems to me to be so depressing about this video. It shows objectively the stark reality of a lot of the human condition in the marvellous, civilised human society in London (which is where I gathered it was from the context - the film is taken in what is probably the sole operational lift in an '80s-style, high-density living, apartment block).

I wouldn't dream of criticising either the video (I think it's quite an interesting idea, actually), nor your take on it, but, I find the video (and the rather curious Free Hugs one too, for that matter) - as cranioscopical so succinctly and possibly euphemistically puts it:

Not wholly uplifting.

[zridling]

I wonder when this was filmed. Here in the States, everyone I know has their face buried in their phone, playing with it, texting, talking, calling. I'm that guy who smiles and always makes small talk in short, tight situations like that. I was in my optometrist's office the other day, a middle-aged lady asked me what I was there for and I made a bad joke: "The last eye doctor I went to was getting old. I knew it because instead of asking me to sit down and look at the wall, he asked me to bend over and cough."

She grimaced and then told me she was 46 years old out of nowhere. I figure everyone not buried in their phone is likely too tired to talk, or more likely as Henry Thoreau wrote: The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. I wrote a paper in high school in response to his Civil Disobedience and Essays titled: "Most men live lives that are desperately quiet." Back then I thought I was clever.

[nudone]

hahaha. that wasn't despressing, it was pretty funny, and i'd say intentionally so. not in a laughing at the people way, more laughing with them. you can see they found it amusing and ridiculous, or were just perplexed but also amused.

i love this kind of stuff, real people, just being who they are - and not giving a sh*t.

boy, if that's depressing you'd better not come out with me or meet some of my old friends - you'd be throwing yourself in front of a train by the end of the conversation.

it's all about laughing at the absurdity and how crap things are.

there's loads of humour in it. phew. i'm surprised a phew of you thought it was despressing.

[nudone]

okay, it gets a bit depressiong towards the end with the bloke discussing his dead parents. but there are still plenty of humorous bits scattered through it.