Film: This Is Not a Movie

Film again today - and with a surfeit of sport on tv, it didn't take me long to get around to it. I watched Sands Film's weekly offering, a documentary about the late, great Robert Fisk, entitled This Is Not a Movie.

Oh wow, this should be required viewing. As the club organiser pointed out, its release this year was stymied by the pandemic, and it's kind of sunk without trace - which is a tragedy indeed. So he urged viewers to share it. Well, here we go! I should point out that it's not, at time of writing, on the "past films" page - I had to go to the main film page, which has a few Robert Fisk-related resources, under a heading of an homage to him.

It starts dramatically, with old footage of a younger Robert Fisk and his cameraman, running under fire through the rubble-strewn streets of a Middle-Eastern city. As, in more recent times, he is driven towards the front line of the Syrian civil war, he laments the fact that he sees no other journalists there. The club organiser, in his brief analysis afterwards, points out Fisk's physical courage - but as the man himself says, you have to go and see for yourself. Certainly, he's scathing about getting information from the internet - and particularly about social media.

One of the major themes throughout is his lack of trust in authority - and how refreshing it is to see someone unwilling to toe the popular line! Criticised many times through the years for being "pro" one side or "anti" another - as he says, what does he care? He writes what he sees - after that, people can make of it what they want. He has better things to do than worry about people's opinion of him.

He cut his teeth in Belfast - where he made an enemy of the British Army by refusing to follow their official line on things, instead publicising their crimes, incursions across the border and so on. Good preparation for the Middle East, where he spent most of his life. Asked in an interview why he was still there, he said it's like a book that you just can't put down - he MUST see what happens next.

You'll learn a lot about the politics of the area, just by watching this. He follows an arms trail from Syria, back to Bosnia, and thence to Saudi Arabia, who were, at the time, arming Syrian rebels. Including "terrorists" - a buzz word that he hates, because he says we're addicted to it. He's met Bin Laden a few times, incidentally - and you'll be interested to hear his account of one tense interview! Also included on the Sands Films site is a link to a rare tv documentary that Fisk made, From Beirut to Bosnia, about the relationship between the Middle East and the West - kudos to them for digging it out! I might actually watch that on Tuesday.

Always suspicious of the official line, he is scathing of the Israelis.. and you just have to see the interview with one settler (colonist, as Fisk would put it - as he says, language is important), in which the settler denies that there ever was a Palestinian state or history! Thorough, brave, and committed, truly, with his passing, a great light has gone out - we can just hope that his ideals and standards continue. This film comes with my highest recommendation.. and do stay for the credits, over which the very appropriate Cedars of Lebanon is played!

Tomorrow afternoon, the great storyteller Nick Hennessy has another livestream! Mustn't miss that. In fact, just in case we were thinking of forgetting it, he was practicing his livestream today, as I was trying to watch my film..

And on Monday - an old friend has bought me a ticket to watch the livestream of A Christmas Carol from the Old Vic! He and the family will be watching simultaneously. Aww, how thoughtful..