Educational Media Reviews Online

In My American Neighbor, Russian born filmmakers Irina Patkanian examines ideas of patriotism by scrutinizing the concept that "the best country in the world" is always that place in which you grew up. As the filmmaker examines her personal perspectives on patriotism as a Russian citizen living in the United States, she also focuses her lens on Americans living in France, Egypt, Italy, Greece and Russia to find out how their experience living abroad has affected their view of America, both as a country and a concept.

Stylistically the film feels a bit disjointed, switching between fairly straightforward talking head style interviews with the featured Americans and Patkanian's reflexive voice over narrative and whimsical cinematography. Conceptually however, this format works well in tying together diverse voices and perspectives to comment on specific issues, such as how individuals feel about their homeland as citizen living abroad. Patkanian and the Americans discuss those things they like and dislike about their new countries and reflect on what their homeland means to them at this juncture. The Americans interviewed are a fairly diverse group in terms of age, sex and race, so the resulting answers work to paint the picture that the American viewpoint itself is more or less divergent.

Patkanian provides some interesting insights about America through the eyes of a foreign citizen, including impressions she picked up in her youth living in Russia. A particularly funny scene stands out in which the filmmaker mentally links together her idea of America as a nation obsessed with happiness to the popularity of happy meals, happy hour and the happy ending. Groups of citizens from France, Russia, Italy and Greece are also asked about their views of America and its citizens. The feedback is resoundingly that as a nation, America tends to focuses inward instead of looking out to see the global affects of its actions, both good and bad.

This film is recommended for courses focusing on global studies and international relations.