The Back of the World

Intriguing, slightly slick, but finally affecting triptych documenting suffering and injustice around the globe. 'The Child' concerns a young Peruvian kid who toils daily in a stone quarry to help his impoverished Indian family; 'The Word' is about a Kurd exiled in Stockholm, far from his wife, for the last quarter of a century; and 'Life' deals with prisoners on Death Row in Texas, and ends with Bush on TV. For all its visual polish, the film has an air of truth, even if it doesn't really tell us much we didn't already know.