Katy Sharp-Watson attended a special screening of a ‘film-poem’ depicting the voices, sounds and movements of Hackney.
Under The Cranes is a documentary that mixes modern cinematography with rarely seen archive footage of working class life in the borough of Hackney. The backdrop is Michael Rosen’s poem Hackney Streets, his ode to the borough in which he lived for many years.
We hear voices old and new: a 96-year-old woman, a Turkish barber, a Bangladeshi restaurant owner, and a Jamaican builder. But director Emma-Louise Williams has mixed old and new footage to create a timeless vision. She has composed the film so that we do not always know what time it is.
From slums and marshland to the mansions overlooking Victoria Park, Hackney is constantly evolving: full of creativity, rich in history, yet never without its social challenges.
Racism and migration are recurring themes of the film, starting with the Jewish 43 group which stood up to Oswald Mosley and defeated his fascist blackshirts as they marched through the East End. The film opts not to make a direct comparison with modern-day fears of immigration; instead it uses this event from 1936 to show us a group that was once subjected to oppression but now lives among the community largely without persecution.
Under The Cranes questions the constant regeneration of Hackney. We are invited to ask who the houses are built for. What has the Olympics done for the community of Hackney? And how can we address the chronic shortage of affordable housing? The film also asks us to look closer at our own communities, to appreciate diversity and to challenge gentrification. But above all, it is a work of love dedicated to an area steeped in history.
Not a nostalgia trip down sugar-coated, memory lane, the film invites viewers to respond intelligently to its lyrical depiction of the people of Hackney.
Under The Cranes was screened on 20 October 2014 at St Joseph’s Hospice as part of the inaugural London Fields Free Film Festival.