Film: Put Your Soul on your Hand and Walk

Tonight, decided on film again - and top of the list, again, was the Palestinian documentary, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk - the photojournalist interviewed in the film was killed the day after the film was released. This is the one I didn't get to last week. Tonight, it was in the Curzon Bloomsbury - didn't sell out, but I decided to book, for convenience.

It was delightfully late, which meant I could start work late and finish even later, racking up hours for the week. I headed in in decent time - but there was something weird with me and bus doors today. I guess things go in cycles - each way, I had to change bus, and on the outbound journey, the driver of the first bus was going hell for leather. Sure enough, when I was getting off, he couldn't wait to get the doors closed, and actually trapped me in them! I uttered a few choice words and he let me out - I glared at him as I walked past. On the second bus, lots of us wanted to get off - and it took ages for him to get the doors open! Finally, on my bus home, he closed the doors after the guy who got off in front of me - I had to ask him to let me off.. I mean, I know I'm wearing black today, but am I that invisible?!

Arrived in plenty of time to grab a bite at GBK - ah, it's been too long! And so to the cinema, and a lovely glass of my favourite wine. I was just nicely settled, at the end of the row, in time for the film start.

It's a very simple premise - a documentary filmmaker is put in touch with a young photojournalist in Gaza and spends a year filming herself videocalling her, and putting some of her work on film as well. But oh, it's quietly devastating. Especially knowing what's going to happen to her, I could have wept as this young girl (24) expressed her dream to travel, and envy of the older woman she was talking to, who was jetting all over the world. The internet connection between them was, of course, vexatiously unreliable -  but as things escalated, it was harrowing to see how tired she was: partly from stress, partly from lack of food. 

She also recited a bit of a poem she wrote - part of it involved her being shot by a sniper, and becoming an angel, watching over Gaza. Well, that's not quite what happened - in what's flagged in the film as the last call, we see her beaming into the camera, keeping her spirits up. Then a caption explains that later that night, a bomb completely obliterated the house she and her family were living in, and she was killed, along with six family members. At least they died in their sleep.

I see this conflict has finally been classified as genocide. About time. How many more tales of woe must we hear before this is done?

Well, next come a few days of Meetups. Tomorrow, back with Up in the Cheap Seats for Good Night, Oscar, at the Barbican. Stars Sean Hayes. Eating beforehand in Cote Barbican.

Then a couple of days of film. Just yesterday, Movie Roadhouse London advertised a choice of film for Thursday. You could have The Roses - an updated version of The War of the Roses, starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as a married couple whose marriage breaks up spectacularly. Danny DeVito is her divorce lawyer. The updated version has Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman.

Or you could have Caught Stealing. In the style of crime comedy films we know and love - hell, it's actually set in 90s NYC - here we have Austin Butler as the hapless interloper in an underground crime world that he is neither familiar with, nor wants to be (he reminds me so much of Brad Pitt, back in the day). Zoe Kravitz is the love interest. Liev Schreiber shows up, pretty unrecognisable, as one of the heavies.

Both in the Cineworld Empire, both finishing at around the same time, it's a combined Meetup, you just go to whichever appeals. So.. which am I going to? Watch this space. ;-)

And on Friday - well now, I was hardly going to miss The Hideout's trip to The Conjuring: Last Rites, which opens that day.. starring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine Warren, it apparently covers the 1986 Smurl haunting. And they're supposed to be making this the last case. Well, I love this stuff, so that was a no-brainer. Showing in the Odeon West End.

Eating in Bella Italia both days, of course, as it's convenient for both.

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