Film: Watchers of the Sky

I'm back!! Yes indeed, I actually didn't go anywhere the last two nights - apathy for the films, combined with nice sunny evenings, meant I just didn't feel like it. I stayed home instead - got a few things organised, including starting an online German course by Linguaphone, for which I got a massive discount with Time Out offers..

But I'm back in the saddle tonight. I went to Watchers of the Sky - now, this is one I meant to go to ages ago, but something else came up. It was showing tonight only, in the Institute of Contemporary Arts. I was glad to get another chance to see it. Went straight from the office, which meant that the Tube was packed, of course. I had something of a crisis on the stairs leading down to it, with someone coming against me - on the rail, of course. And me needing the rail, with my bathmophobia. Anyway, I survived. Ironic that the guy I noticed on the platform as being outstandingly cute turned out to be the exact same guy that I ended up crushed up against in the carriage a few minutes later! Mind you, he was spottier up close..

The ICA - like most things, I suppose - is easy to get to when you know how. Passing through the barriers at Piccadilly Circus, take the exit straight ahead, marked Regent Street. Continue straight ahead, down Regent Street, to the end - where the statue of the Duke of York stands. Proceed down the steps, and hang a left at the bottom. Ah yes, more steps. Now, it was quite sunny and mild at this point, and there were people sitting on the steps. At the edges. Where the rails are - no rail down the centre, here. Gave me a moment's pause that - but there were just two couples, one on each side, but at different levels - and there was a flat bit between where they were. So - ahem - I had to go all the way from the left, where I started, to the right-hand side to get the rail down to the next flat bit (to avoid the first couple), and then walk all the way across the flat bit to get the rail down the left-hand side (to avoid the second couple), which led me to the bottom. Lordy, what a fuss..

There was a larger queue than I've seen before. As I bought my ticket, she explained to me that it was actually cheaper than advertised, because there was no Q+A, as advertised. Ok fine. The screen was already open, and I chose a seat. The screening was in association with DocHouse, which holds regular screenings of documentaries, together with Q+As, at a few venues around town. I must say, they have a terrific programme. Anyway, someone from the organising committee made an announcement before the show began, to say that the person they'd lined up for the Q+A hadn't been able to make it because of a family bereavement.

Which is actually a shame, because I would have loved to hear someone give an insight into some of the issues that this incredible film deals with. It's interesting - the last time I went to a film, I was delighted it wasn't a documentary. However, some documentaries merit their high rating. This film should be required viewing for EVERY HUMAN BEING old enough to understand. It's about genocide. It's about a man called Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term. A Polish Jew whose entire family perished in the Holocaust, he fled to the States in 1941. Frustrated that the Nuremberg Trials didn't go far enough in condemning what happened, he spent the rest of his life lobbying the United Nations to recognise the crime of genocide.

But it's about more than his story. We meet some amazing people - the lawyer at the UN who worked with him, and came from a refugee family himself - the United States ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, who was a correspondent in the Bosnian war and is now a tireless campaigner against genocide - the crusading Argentinian lawyer whose family disowned him when he prosecuted the junta and who now prosecutes in the International Criminal Court - and then there's possibly the most amazing story of all. The final character is the refugee whose entire family was killed in Rwanda, and who now runs refugee camps in Eastern Chad: a gentle man, who chokes up when he talks about his family, but feels that his role is to help others. Revenge, he says, can do us no good - its only effect is to bring trouble for our children, and our children's children.

There are many powerful messages in this film. There's Lemkin's frustration at the Nuremberg trials, where they believed that such a thing could never happen again. Of course, we've since seen that it not only can, but most probably will. Again and again. We see some examples in the film - Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Syria. We can all think of more. And the one thing of which you can be sure, if this happens in your neighbourhood - as the film points out very clearly - is that no-one will come riding in to help you. Governments talk the talk, but rarely walk the walk. The Rwandan genocide only ended when the Tutsis fought back. Nobody came rushing in for any of the other victims either. A mother living in a refugee camp in Chad, when interviewed, confides how one of her sons has already been killed, another has lost an eye and she's afraid for his life too, and now her teenage son is ready to join the rebels. He has no choice - no-one else will help them.

And yet.. we have this unsupported band of idealists in the UN, issuing arrest warrants for people like Omar al-Bashir (still at large and awaiting some army - any army - to come arrest him). We have people like that brave Rwandan Tutsi who runs the refugee camps in Chad. And we have the lawyer who worked with Lemkin, who tells us the story behind the film's name. Relates to Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer who persuaded the king to build him an observatory. Well, he'd been there 25 years, and there was a new king, who wanted to know what went on there, and sent some men to find out. Brahe explained that he'd been watching the sky. "Whatever for?" "Well," he said, "I now have incredibly accurate measurements of the movements of the stars. I thought it might give me an insight into the meaning of the universe, but, well.." "So what was the use?" "Well," he said, "when someone else comes along to discover the meaning of the universe, I will have saved him 25 years work..!" Indeed, apparently, when the first astronauts landed on the moon, they had a copy of Brahe's measurement tables with them.

Astonishing film. Infuriating, emotional, beautifully expressed. Keep a close eye out for it.

It was raining when I came out - at least the steps were clear! Coming back on a much emptier Tube, I found myself sitting opposite a member of the UK Under 15 Fencing team. Fancy.. Then I got home and discovered I had been supposed to be somewhere else! I had a ShowFilmFirst free ticket to a concert - was convinced it was tomorrow night, it turns out it was tonight. Oops! Well, I can fairly guarantee that this was better. And it leaves me free to go to the National Gallery tomorrow night - I've been wanting to all week, but they only open late on Fridays. They're running what sounds like a fascinating exhibition, on architecture in Italian Renaissance paintings. Well, I've never been before, but I do love Renaissance art. I was going to go on Saturday, but if I go tomorrow, that'll leave me free on Saturday to go to Return to Homs, a terrific-looking documentary, showing that day only, about two young lads from Homs whose lives have been utterly changed by the war. So, works out well for me then!