Film: Return to Homs

Return to Homs was showing tonight only, in Clapham Picturehouse. As we learned at the Q+A, there's a Picturehouse initiative to screen documentaries that would otherwise find it hard to get publicised - and that's what tonight was. As usual, I checked early in the day - but it didn't seem to be booking out, so I didn't bother booking.

I've been there once before, so roughly remembered the drill - train to Clapham, then a bus to Clapham Common. I looked up the time of the last train I'd need to get in order to get there in time, looked up the letter-names (Stop G, Stop K) of the bus stops I'd need to go to, travelling in both directions, and the bus numbers I'd need - and took most particular care to note the exact name of the stop I'd need to get off at in Clapham Common. There are a lot of similar-sounding stops around there.

After a day of lounging around, I was, of course, tight for time - as usual - for my train. However, after nearly giving myself a heart attack getting to the station, I was two minutes early - just enough time to get my breath back before it arrived. I knew to head right from the station for the bus stop, on the other side of the road, beside the bridge - which had a bus parked at it as I approached. As it drove off, I was able to confirm that yes, that had been my bus. Well, but there were two I could take, and the other one happened along shortly afterward. I noticed, as we passed Clapham Common, that there seemed to be stages set up there - dunno what that's about, there's just too much happening to keep track of it all! Confusion ensued shortly afterward, when it turned out - as we sped past the street I needed - that, despite Google Maps calling the stop "Clapham Common", it's actually "Clapham Common Station". Oh well, I got off at the next stop and walked back. Just as well I was early (the trains only come at 15-minute intervals, so that can happen).

Clapham Picturehouse is, shall we say, snug. I bought my ticket without problem and made for the toilet. By the time I emerged, the lobby - such as it is, being crammed into a tiny space with screens and ticket desk to the sides, a space marked out for concessions, and running into the bar - was packed with people who had arrived early for the film. We all had to wait - another film was still running inside. When that audience came out, of course, there was chaos, everyone trying to squeeze in different directions. The people ahead of me had all booked, I noticed, and come with their confirmations.

They hardly needed to book - the place was only half full. This was what they term a "special event", and no ads were shown. Instead, we were launched pretty much straight into the most visceral, the most disturbing, war film you are ever likely to see. Forget anything you've seen from Hollywood - this is real war footage, shot in and around Homs over a period of two years (August 2011 - August 2013) and focusing on a young man, once named as Asia's second most promising goalkeeper, now a militia leader.

The film rapidly progresses from covering excited young men, shouting about how they'll bring down the corrupt government, composing slogans and patriotic songs and broadcasting them online - to the hell that ensued once the government attacked. We are led right into the middle of the siege of Homs, with families trapped by government troops that patrol the streets with tanks and snipers. We see militia smashing holes in the walls between deserted apartments, for easier access - and smashing smaller ones through the walls facing the streets, to give them somewhere safe to fire from. The furniture is still intact in the apartments that haven't been shelled - one scene shows the subject of the film firing on government troops while standing between two wardrobes that still contain clothes and pillows.

Most of the film takes place in a post-apocalyptic landscape of half-demolished buildings and rubble. As the militia leader explains at one point, he doesn't care about the government troops - he just wants to clear an escape path from the city for the innocent civilians that are trapped. We see people being shot, we see corpses. And the cameraman whose face is pixelated in the beginning of the film doesn't appear in the second half of it - he was trying to cross the border with footage, we were told in the Q+A, and the taxi driver noticed he was hiding something and reported him to the border guards. He was arrested, and hasn't been seen or heard from since. That was over a year ago. The others were luckier - smuggled bits and pieces of footage hidden around their bodies, smuggled camera pieces in the chassis of their car. They found it safer to travel with a woman in the front - guards were more respectful.

The Q+A was attended by the director, and a representative of Amnesty International, who are campaigning for the right to have humanitarian aid brought into Syria. The director was asked what his purpose was in making the film. He replied that the story needed to be told, and the media have their own agenda and can't be trusted - cinema is the only way to tell the truth, he said. When someone mentioned Obama's pledge to help the Syrian people, he chuckled. "Talk, talk, talk," is all he said. He has a point - this has been going on for three years, and no-one's helped them yet. Indeed, at one point in the film, the militia are shown composing a protest song against the UN.

A number of screenings have been organised around the UK, in conjunction with Picturehouse cinemas, until the 10th July. See here for further details. As we left, they distributed flyers about how you can organise your own screenings - see here for more. There's also a link on the film website about organising your own screenings in the US.

As I arrived at the bus stop, so did the bus - as one woman remarked, it nearly took her head off, it came so near! And as we lurched back to the station, remarks went along the lines of "He's just learning to drive, isn't he?" "He's started celebrating a bit early." "He's testing the brakes!" "I know - he's been playing too many computer games.." Me, I guess he was near the end of his shift and wanted to make it come that much faster. Anyway, it was a relief to get off safely. The last Overground of the night was much more sedate - people coming home from Glastonbury featured. For example, the tanned and healthy-looking young couple opposite me - he wearing a rock t-shirt and shorts, she in wellies, but otherwise not looking like the welly-wearing type (much too groomed). Also, the wellies were suspiciously clean. Although I didn't actually see a Hunter label.

PS Pity the poor guy who was just coming down the steps as we were going up, having got off the train at West Brompton. That was the last train of the night, and he didn't even realise it, as it pulled away before he got to the bottom. And there he stood, waiting for a train that would never arrive, and the guard on the other platform had to call across to him. Ah well..

That's two very heavy documentaries I've seen in three days. Tomorrow, something lighter - Cold in July, in which a homeowner accidentally shoots dead an intruder and is hailed as a local hero. Until the dead man's father is released from prison and comes a-lookin' for him. Stars Michael C. Hall (better known as Dexter, also starred in Six Feet Under), Sam Shepard, and Don Johnson. Conveniently, it's showing in my local cinema, so no public transport required. Oddly, they had originally scheduled three screenings tomorrow, but it's since been reduced to two. Never mind, I'm sure I'll cope!