‘I HOPE OUR FILM HELPS PEOPLE THINK’
Vanessa Redgrave makes passionate plea in refugee documentary Sea Sorrow
Vanessa Redgrave has never been one to bite her tongue, and she wasn’t about to start Thursday morning.
The famous British actress and longtime activist, 80, is in Montreal for the screening of her directorial debut, the refugee documentary Sea Sorrow, as part of the 46th Festival du nouveau cinéma.
It’s a topic on which Redgrave has strong feelings, as she does on pretty much everything — beginning with this columnist’s choice of words.
“I’m not an activist, I’m a campaigner,” she corrected me, hip to the baggage that comes with the former description.
Sitting with her son Carlo Gabriel Nero, who produced the film, in an Old Montreal hotel, Redgrave was keen to discuss the global refugee crisis, but less able to describe the process of making her first film.
“It’s very difficult to answer that,” she said. “I certainly couldn’t have made the film without Carlo’s criticism, thoughts, etc. But I’m too involved with refugees to be able to compartmentalize my feelings in this way.”
Her involvement dates back to “the war,” she explained, by which she meant the Second World War, during which her family was forced to leave London when the city was bombed, as related in the film. Not content to play the role of victims, her mother and father (actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson) did whatever they could for others in far worse situations than them.
“My parents helped Jewish refugees,” Redgrave said. “It was very hard to help Jewish refugees because the British government didn’t want to help and refused to help a majority of Jewish refugees.”
That’s where her sense of civic engagement took root, she noted, while resisting framing today’s refugee crisis as part of one long continuum.
“No, I don’t see it as a continuum,” she jumped in. “That’s you, not me. I’m taking the present situation but looking at the history of the present situation, which has got a lot of depths and specifics.”
She mentioned Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as an “admirable exception” to the numerous world leaders using refugees as scapegoats.
“Anti-refugee propaganda goes back a long way,” she said, “more than a century. It goes back to the rotten mythology that Jews were responsible for terrorism. Terrorism was a big deal in the 1880s, 1890s and 1900s, and continues to be. There were a lot of acts of terrorism, and Jews were blamed.
“The cartoons, if you ever want to look them up, are horrifying — people with big noses lurking behind doors with bombs about to go off. That is the antecedent of anti-refugee mythology that is propagated today.”
In Sea Sorrow, Redgrave focuses on the refugee plight affecting Europe: from the Calais Jungle refugee camp, which was torn down in October 2016; to British citizens’ mobilization to welcome refugees, particularly solitary children, in the face of bureaucratic resistance; and Greek efforts to assist the boatloads of refugees landing on their shores during the past several years.
“The Greek people were fantastic — the people, not their government,” she said. “The Greek government and the Cyprus government disregarded the needs of their own people and of refugees. They’re contemptible, I’m afraid.
“Not the Greek people. The Greek people gave their hearts and every (bread) roll they could get their hands on to refugees. Because the European governments didn’t help the Greeks, and the Greek government didn’t help, the mood has changed among the Greek people; of course it has. So there’s a huge culpability on behalf of the European Union, let alone many other governments in the world.”
Redgrave makes little attempt to maintain an objective distance in her film. She inserts herself into the narrative, recounting her personal history, visiting the Calais Jungle and speaking directly to the camera at times. The result is a rough-hewed, passionate call
for engagement from a revered movie star who could certainly be spending her twilight years in other ways. But for her, there is no other way.
“As you can see from the film, (acting and engagement) are not a world apart,” she said. “It’s not amazing. I’m a decent human being, and I hope to remain a decent human being. It’s normal.”
She even manages to weave theatre into the mix. The film’s title is a Shakespeare reference, as spoken by actor Ralph Fiennes delivering a scene from The Tempest. Emma Thompson also appears, leafing through a newspaper from the Second World War.
Queried on what she hopes audiences take away from her film, she replied, “One has to think. I hope our film helps people think. I’m not saying think the same way, but actually thinking. There’s very little thinking going on today.”
“Part of that thinking is identifying,” her son Nero joined in, “being able to put yourself in other people’s situations.”
“Put yourself there,” Redgrave echoed.
“‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ It’s a familiar phrase, but better to remember that than almost anything else.”
Put yourself there. ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ It’s a familiar phrase, but better to remember that than almost anything else.