Is Doha perfect?
Would you like it to be an even nicer place to live?
I think most people would agree that whilst Doha has many strengths, we should constantly be striving to make it the best place it can possibly be. This is the purpose of the documentary - it is asking us to seize the day and think about some of the problems the city has and how these could be addressed. It is a shame that some people are simply disregarding this message and unjustly seeing this as an attack on Doha.
It is quite clear that the critical comments on this forum lack an understanding of the media and how it works. In this case, the documentarists have put forward THEIR version of reality which is based upon THEIR experiences of living here and also (now this is important) RESEARCH from numbeo.com, The Guardian and Qataraccidents.org. All of the sources are provided at the end of the documentary, so before claiming that the film makers are telling "falsehoods", it might be an idea to conduct some research of your own. Granted, the statistics from Numbeo.com can hardly be considered conclusive, yet they do give some insight into how people feel. Also, you cannot really refute the statistics about the deaths of manual workers and traffic accidents - these are largely accepted by Qatari authorities!
Moreover, the critics above need to understand that NOTHING in the media can be considered completely 'real', everything you see and hear is a mediated reality. I think Michel Brault and Wolf Koenig put it well:
"I don't know what truth is. Truth is something unattainable. We can't think we're creating truth with a camera. But what we can do, is reveal something to viewers that allows them to discover their own truth." (Brault)
"Every cut is a lie. It's never that way. Those two shots were never next to each other in time that way. But you're telling a lie in order to tell the truth" (Koenig)
Is Doha perfect?
Would you like it to be an even nicer place to live?
I think most people would agree that whilst Doha has many strengths, we should constantly be striving to make it the best place it can possibly be. This is the purpose of the documentary - it is asking us to seize the day and think about some of the problems the city has and how these could be addressed. It is a shame that some people are simply disregarding this message and unjustly seeing this as an attack on Doha.
It is quite clear that the critical comments on this forum lack an understanding of the media and how it works. In this case, the documentarists have put forward THEIR version of reality which is based upon THEIR experiences of living here and also (now this is important) RESEARCH from numbeo.com, The Guardian and Qataraccidents.org. All of the sources are provided at the end of the documentary, so before claiming that the film makers are telling "falsehoods", it might be an idea to conduct some research of your own. Granted, the statistics from Numbeo.com can hardly be considered conclusive, yet they do give some insight into how people feel. Also, you cannot really refute the statistics about the deaths of manual workers and traffic accidents - these are largely accepted by Qatari authorities!
Moreover, the critics above need to understand that NOTHING in the media can be considered completely 'real', everything you see and hear is a mediated reality. I think Michel Brault and Wolf Koenig put it well:
"I don't know what truth is. Truth is something unattainable. We can't think we're creating truth with a camera. But what we can do, is reveal something to viewers that allows them to discover their own truth." (Brault)
"Every cut is a lie. It's never that way. Those two shots were never next to each other in time that way. But you're telling a lie in order to tell the truth" (Koenig)