Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Grow Your Own
Emma and I watched a great film last night. Grow Your Own seemed to slip under the radar upon release. It was given mixed reviews by critics, but it was well received by audiences and now seems to be having a second life on DVD. A good thing, becuase it's a film that people should see.
The film tells the story of a group of refugees given plots on a Liverpool allotment as part of wider support programme to help with their health and integration (this premise was based on a real project in Liverpool, "The Family Refugee Support Project"). The refugees are greeted with interest by some, fear and confusion by others. There is a great line where the allotment committee meets and one young man suggests that the refugees should be welcomed, to which the chairman responds, “Sure, we should welcome them, but on our own terms!”
The film tells the story of a group of refugees given plots on a Liverpool allotment as part of wider support programme to help with their health and integration (this premise was based on a real project in Liverpool, "The Family Refugee Support Project"). The refugees are greeted with interest by some, fear and confusion by others. There is a great line where the allotment committee meets and one young man suggests that the refugees should be welcomed, to which the chairman responds, “Sure, we should welcome them, but on our own terms!”
The film uses the self-contained world of the allotment as a microcosm of wider British society and explores controversial issues of racism, integration, people trafficking, and asylum laws with understatement and humour.
Grow Your Own will be a welcome addition to our collection of films about refugee issues. Where many films that cover this subject matter are (understandably) harrowing, it was interesting to see a film go for a more subtle approach. The committee chairman never makes any explicitly racist comments, but makes shallow excuses for prejudice; in a way, this more subtle form of prejudice is more difficult to address in film than the more obvious extremes. It was also refreshing to see the resilience and humour of refugees portrayed, instead of being simply defined by tragedy.
It’s a great little film and definitely worth an hour and a half of your time (for those interested, here’s a more in-depth review from Film4).
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