Though Cowards Flinch

I don’t see much TV, so it was simply by chance that I came upon one of the best  films I’ve seen in many years last night.

‘Moving to Mars’ was a full-length film documentary covering the story of two very different Karen families living in a Burma/Thai border refugee camp, and then coming to live in Sheffield.

It did what a documentary should do, in my view.  Within the necessary constraints of the medium – the following people and cameras which, however unobtrusively they come across in the finished article will nevertheless always intrude – it allowed people to speak for themselves. 

No ‘celebrity narrator’ seeking to display their versatility and/or whackiness in the interests of extra crowd pull.  No heavy voiceover telling us how to feel (though just occasionally the backing music intervened a tadge too much).  Just two Burmese families, getting on with it.

Alongside the excellence of the whole, there were two features in particular which I think reflected the integrity of the film makers. 

First, a considerable section of the film took place in the refugee camp, before the move to Sheffield.  Rather than simply seeing the families thrown into an alien world and portraying them as helpless dependents, it showed them for what they were – capable, caring family units making informed decisions about their life chances, and getting on with it.

Second, any temptation there might have been to portray the ‘system’ they found themselves in once they arrived in Sheffield as a hostile bureaucracy was set aside. 

While the difficulties of transition and status change (especially for the civil engineer-educated father) could be painful to watch, the small, passing kindnesses of their English hosts and new co-citizens  were often warmly affirming.  From the JobCentre woman standing to shake the family by the hand and wish them her sincere best, to the welcome of their new ‘Korean’ teammate (a reference to a Korean player at Man U) by a teenage footballer, the film showed that, whatever the hostilities and hatreds of Asylum Seekers fostered by the Daily Mail, there is another reality of common decency and understanding.

There’s so much more to it than that.  But go watch it (there’s a quick trailer here too, and a twitter account here).  It’s not one of those ‘worthy’ documentaries you feel you have to watch to feel good about your own virtue levels.  It’s a joy.  And I hardly ever watch TV.

(Other reviews I’ve now spotted here and here from proper reviewers, and BBC story here.  In fact, everyone other than me seemed to know all about it already.)