Review: Transit Dubai (2008)

Director: Ineke Smits | 72 minutes | documentary

Dubai must become the new world city. New New York, the city where everything happens and where everyone must have been once. That is the idea behind the new Dubai, which is booming. Hotels, flats, gigantic complexes are being built. Everything is being prepared so that Dubai is the largest and most important city in 2015. The population must be quadrupled, the best doctors must come over so that everyone goes to Dubai for good surgeries and treatments. But what are all these changes doing to the real residents of Dubai right now? And who actually live in Dubai?

The real original inhabitants of Dubai are dying. You can still see them on Sundays in the shopping center, the main meeting place. Young girls who walk around veiled with bags from Gucci and then flirt with the men on a terrace in their own way. That is the real Dubai. But slowly everything is changing. Dubai is growing. More and more other nationalities are settling here. Several small communities arise that live separately from each other. All these communities come together in the photography class that forms the basis for this documentary. All people in this class show through a photo session which groups of people live in Dubai. You have the immigrants, the rich women who are having the time of their lives here. They don’t have to work they can do whatever they want. They in no way come into contact with the real population of Dubai. Then you have the young people who see the shopping center as their most important place. You have the workers who have to work for their money and who make sure that the immigrants can have such a good life. You have the poor fishermen, who live in a small group somewhere in the back but are still happy with their lives. And you have the hitchhikers, who have no money for transport and who are always on the side of the road, each with their own story. who have to work for their money and who ensure that the immigrants can have such a good life. You have the poor fishermen, who live in a small group somewhere in the back but are still happy with their lives. And you have the hitchhikers, who have no money for transport and who are always on the side of the road, each with their own story. who have to work for their money and who ensure that the immigrants can have such a good life. You have the poor fishermen, who live in a small group somewhere in the back but are still happy with their lives. And you have the hitchhikers, who have no money for transport and who are always on the side of the road, each with their own story.

Dubai is an exciting city. The city is on the rise, but is also on the verge of collapse. When the leader of the photography class asks who sees Dubai as their home, no one raises a finger. Everyone plans to leave Dubai one day, it is just a stopover. They are happy here, but do not feel at home there. What do the designers and the big men behind the gigantic construction projects actually want to achieve? They chase away their own residents and make Dubai a stopover. A place where many people want to live for a while and then continue to travel. Whether the wild plans will ever continue and whether Dubai will really become the metropolis they want to make it remains the question.

It is clear that this city is very exciting, and that history is being written there right now. Documentary filmmaker Ineke Smits has also had a good eye on this. She makes a film on this subject at just the right time, and what one! After seeing ‘Transit Dubai’ you realize what is actually happening in this city. Tourists are brought in, but the inhabitants are chased away. The real culture of the city is being destroyed, but they don’t realize it yet. Transit Dubai is a very beautiful and intriguing portrait of an exciting city, of which we will hear a lot more in the future, both positively and negatively.