45) Musings on Malala
Odd coincidence – but then that’s the thing about coincidences, they’re always odd - that having written my last post but one about the refugee/immigrant issue (no 43) and the last about the London Film Festival (44), the very next film I see at the festival should force my attention back to the refimmigrants.
The gist of my two penn’orth on their situation was that, though I’m reluctant to admit it, I do have misgivings, for a host of reasons, about the increasing Muslim population here. If you think that sounds disgustingly Faragist, which, I am embarrassed to say, it rather does, please take the trouble to read the piece I wrote before you condemn me out of hand. I also said that once I started to put faces to the stats I could not help but wonder if my fears were justified.
After that , as I’ve said, I was on to the film festival and the largely uninspiring dross – with a couple of honourable excepttions - they were serving up during the first days of the press previews.
And then, no sooner had I posted that piece, than along came the odd coincidence – the screening of a documentary feature called ‘He Named me Malala’.
I yield to no-one when it comes to stony hearted cynicism but even my tear ducts, in dusty disuse for decades, showed definite signs of moistening. Malala Yousafzai is a marvel – staggeringly courageous, extraordinarily self possessed, hope for a better world personified. And as she is portrayed here, charming, personable, and, despite the worst efforts of the maniacs of the Swat valley, seemingly invincible.
To see her addressing the UN with such staggering composure, travelling the world to spread the word that education of girls is an Allah given right, and even collecting the Nobel peace prize - as the youngest ever winner - for 2014 (having incredibly lost out in 2013 to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, whoever they are) whilst at the same time trying to pass her GCSE’s, recover from her horrendous injuries and simply be a teenage girl, was truly awe inspiring.
There are some interesting sub-texts to this film, notably the part her father played in moulding her, and the unfathomable hostility to her by some in Pakistan but, in the end, it is the simple fact that Malala is that overwhelms everything else. If this sounds like gushing hero(ine) worship, I make no apologies. She is an absolute inspiration.
And she is also, of course, a Muslim. I shall very definitely have to put that in my pipe of prejudice and smoke it. 4 stars for the movie from me, and an incalculable number of stars for her.
‘He Named Me Malala’ is on at Thursday, Oct 8th at 6.15pm at the NFT 1, on Friday 9th, at 2.30pm at the Odeon Leicester Square and at 6.30pm on Sat 10th at the Rich Mix. Strongly recommended - it’s the ultimate feel good movie.
Not much else that I’ve seen at the Festival has made me feel anything other than bored or tired. One notable exception was a wonderful Danish film called ‘Land of Mine’. This, in fictionalised form, tells the true story of how young German prisoners of war were used, at the end of World War II, to clear the Danish beaches of the two million plus landmines that German soldiers had laid in the first place. It is a meticulously made and utterly convincing film with a subtly nuanced script that cleverly shifts your sympathies around.
After watching the brilliant Danish TV series ‘1864′ on BBC4 a few weeks ago, about the Schleswig Holstein war, and having now seen this, I rather have the impression that there is a pint or two of historical bad blood between the Danes and the Germans and perhaps it’s not altogether impossible to understand. ‘Land of Mine’ however, is a film which though it starts off underlining the old enmities ends up by blurring the lines. On at the Mayfair at 6.30pm on Thursday 8th and the Vue 5 at 3.15pm on the 9th.
The first week of the press screenings concluded with a French film called ’21 Nights with Pattie’, about which I can only say that, for me, 2 hours in the afternoon with Pattie was way too long, and a German film called ‘Die Nachtmahr.’ (I don’t speak German but even I managed to translate that.) This was about a teenage girl who apparently starts to imagine that a gruesome foetus like creature is tormenting her. From where I sat, the gruesome foetus like creature was far and away the most appealing thing about this film.
Week two opened with ‘Mountains May Depart’ a Chinese film which, someone told me afterwards was full of symbolism about the transition from communism to consumerism. The only points of interest for me were that the female lead wore the same stripy sweater for several years - I kept wondering when she had time to wash it - and that, at the end, we were taken into the future, supposedly to 2025. I’m always fascinated by visions of the future but this one didn’t quite measure up to ‘Metropolis’ or ‘Blade Runner’. The only thing that seemed to have changed was that people had see-through i-pads, which is not a lot to get excited about. At least the stripy sweater had been mothballed.
Then came ‘Blood of My Blood’ an Italian film that starts off being an historic piece about a girl who may have bewitched the hero’s twin brother into committing suicide and then morphs into a bizarre modern day attempted comedy. (At least, I think that was what happened, but I nodded off a few times.)
Finally, yesterday afternoon, having been so dispirited by most of the films I’d seen that I took a day off to go to Brighton to cavort in the Indian summer sun – much more fun - I returned to the NFT to see a Czech film called ‘Lost in Munich’. This was a comedy about the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by France in 1938 and led to the invasion by the Nazis. A challenging subject for a comedy you might think but actually this turned out to be the pretext for something much more complex and really rather clever. Possibly. I have to add this qualification, because, once again, fatigue got the better of me and I only saw it intermittently. Whilst this suggests a failing in ‘Lost in Munich’ in that it wasn’t gripping enough to keep me awake, I do slightly regret that I didn’t see more. I might even swap my usual decaff flat white for the real thing and try to see it again.
